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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 
FATHERHOOD OF GOD 



Ai LINCOLN SHUTE 

A.M. (Cornell Coll.), B.D. (Drew) 
Member of the Rock River Conference 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church 



INTRODUCTION 

By 

Bishop STEPHEN M. MERRILL, D.D., LL.D. 



^ 



New York: EATON & MAINS 
Cincinnati: JENNINGS & PYE 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDles Received 

APR 30 1904 

Oooyrleht Entry 

CLASS 0^ XXo. No. 

COPY B 






Copyright, 1904, by 
EATON & MAINS. 



To My Mother 

Whose Anxious and Persistent 

Prayers for the Salvation of Her Boy 

Led Me in Early Life 

To Desire and Seek 

To Become a Child of God 

And by Whose Sacrifices Largely 

[ was Prepared for the Christian Ministry 

This My First Book 

Is Dedicated 

On Her Seventy -fifth 

Birthday, April 21, 1904 



"It affords me great pleasure to say that 1 
have read with much interest the manuscript of 
the book of Rev. A. Lincoln Shute, B.D., on 
The Fatherhood of God, 

"I regard it as a book prepared with great care, 
clear in style, full in its treatment, and eminently 
satisfactory. The book shows profound study of 
the literature on the subject and an acquaintance 
with the issues involved, and I am confident that 
its circulation will do much good in spreading the 
truth on this most important topic of Christian 
thought. 

"I cordially commend it as worthy of study on 
the part of our preachers and people." — Henry 
A. Butts, D,D., LL.D., President of Drew Theo- 
logical Seminary, 



PREFACE 



"The Fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man," is a phrase very 
popular, widely used and much abused. 
It is employed constantly in whole or in 
part by very many writers and speakers, 
who seem to take it for granted that it 
has a very definite and fully established 
meaning : namely, that all men are broth- 
ers because God is their universal Father. 
Very few have attempted to formulate an 
exact doctrine of the subject; and still 
fewer have done this by a full and fair 
examination of what the Bible has to say 
about it. 

In 1864 Dr. Robert S. Candlish de- 
livered the Cunningham Lectures before 
the New College, Edinburgh, on "The 
Fatherhood of God/* maintaining that 



6 Preface 

the relationship has reference only to 
those who have been born again, born of 
God. These lectures form the most satis- 
factory treatment of the subject that has 
yet appeared, but contain a fatal defect, 
due to his system of theology, or at least 
to his understanding of that system. In 
1866 Professor Thomas J. Crawford, 
D.D., of the University of Edinburgh, 
published a reply to Dr. Candlish, aiming 
"to illustrate the Divine Fatherhood, at 
once in its general reference to all man- 
kind and in its special reference to'^ be- 
lievers. Besides these, and with the ex- 
ception of a work by Charles H. H. 
Wright in 1867, and a more recent little 
book by John C. Adams, a Universalist, 
the writer knows of no book on the sub- 
ject which attempts a full exposition of 
the teaching of Scripture on the Divine 
Fatherhood. Many books on other 
themes, and some on this, contain some 
Scriptural references to the subject or an 
exposition of a few relevant or irrelevant 



Preface 7 

passages of the Word, various lines of 
argument, and much assumption concern- 
ing it, but no thorough attempt to set 
forth and establish the BibHcal doctrine 
of the Fatherhood. 

The importance of such a study is seen 
in the fact that the notion that God is a 
universal Father is of such far-reaching 
influence that the Universalist takes it for 
his fundamental doctrine, an Oxford the- 
ologian and lecturer in American univer- 
sities makes it "the determinative prin- 
ciple" of theology, and a recent author, in 
an attempt to disprove Dr. Henry van 
Dyke's characterization of the present as 
"An Age of Doubt," proposes that "all 
theories about God, man, and the universe 
should be interpreted" in its light. And 
yet only the first of these attempts to es- 
tablish his fundamental principle by an 
examination of both sides of the Scrip- 
tural argument on the teaching in ques- 
tion. It would seem to be time that this 
doctrine should be held up to view in the 



8 Preface 

light of the whole Bible, in order that its 
own truth or falsity may be determined, 
that we may be prepared the better to 
weigh the value of the conclusions drawn 
from the assumed truth of the premise of 
the universal Fatherhood as the funda- 
mental, determinative, interpreting prin- 
ciple. It is possible that such a course 
would lead to the discovery that a most 
precious truth of our faith is being misin- 
terpreted and misapplied, so that its real 
value is lost, and that which should be a 
source of comfort and inspiration is being 
turned into an instrument of evil. 

Since writing the body of this work 
and the foregoing part of this Preface, 
two books, very recently published, have 
come to our attention. The one is The 
Fatherhood of God in Christian Truth 
and Life, by J. Scott Lidgett, M.A., Edin- 
burgh. One-third of this large book of 
over four hundred pages is devoted to a 
Scripture interpretation of the doctrine, 
one-third to the doctrine in Church his- 



Preface 9 

tory, and the remainder to the significance 
of the Divine Fatherhood. This book 
goes to the press too soon for the writer 
to make an extended examination of Mr. 
Lidgett's work. This much, however, is 
evident, that he makes the same vital 
mistake made by all advocates of the 
universal Divine Fatherhood : namely, the 
failure to discern that the Scriptures 
ground the Divine family relationship not 
in creation but in redemption. This de- 
fect vitiates much of his Scripture inter- 
pretation and leads him also to miss the 
mark in some parts at least of his histor- 
ical review. Every argument of funda- 
mental importance in this new work has 
been anticipated in the following pages, 
so as to make further comment unneces- 
sary. 

The other book, The New and Living 
Way, by Dr. M. S. Terry, makes refer- 
ence to this subject only in a footnote 
closing with this sentence : "So one may 
say after the manner of Paul in i Tim- 



10 Preface 

othy 4: 10, that God is the Father oi all 
men, especially of them that believe/' 
First Timothy 4: 10 reads, "We have our 
hope set on the living God, who is the 
Savior of all men, especially of them that 
believe." Every evangelical Christian 
knows the meaning of Paul's words: 
namely, that Christ is not actually but 
potentially the Savior of all men, and 
that this potential Savior becomes the 
actual Savior of any particular adult in- 
dividual only on condition of repentance 
toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus 
Christ. The same thing, as Dr. Terry 
suggests, is true concerning God's Father- 
hood, which is exactly coextensive with 
the Saviorhood of Christ. This doctrine 
is developed fully from Scripture in the 
following study. 

The author desires to express his grati- 
tude to Bishop Stephen M. Merrill and 
President Henry A. Buttz for their kind- 
ly encouragement after reading the manu- 
script. The Bishop has made many val- 



Preface 11 

uable suggestions, besides writing the 
Introduction. 

The purpose of the writer has not been 
to furnish an example of elegant writing 
as a model for the college class room, 
though he has aimed persistently at one 
rhetorical requirement, perspicuity. 

This book is the outgrowth of a pro- 
found conviction that some one, without 
further delay, ought to place within reach 
of the Church universal a full, plain, 
warm-hearted, logical. Scriptural, and 
evangelically Christian presentation of 
the glorious doctrine of the Fatherhood 
of God. Whether the author has accom- 
plished this, must be left to a friendly 
Church to judge. He claims only that 
such was his ideal, prayerful, and pains- 
taking purpose. 

Chicago, April 21, 1904. 



INTRODUCTION 



The subject of this Treatise, always 
interesting, has assumed special import- 
ance in recent years because of the use 
made of it by a certain class of so-called 
liberal theologians, as well as by many 
who do not pretend to be students of the 
Holy Word. The two phrases — the Fa- 
therhood of God, and the brotherhood of 
man — have become linked together in 
such way that one always suggests the 
other, and each appears to be the comple- 
ment of the other. The brotherhood of 
man is supposed to result from the Fa- 
therhood of God. The idea is that inas- 
much as God created all men, and created 
them of one blood, they are all brothers, 
and all children of a common Father. 
This is the ordinary thought which under- 
lies the popular use of this language — a 



14 Introduction 

thought which is not unnatural, and 
which is often used without any suspicion 
of its heretical bearing, or that it has any 
tendency to lead to unsound or unscrip- 
tural conceptions of God, or of His rela- 
tion to the human race. It does, however, 
have this tendency, and it is often used 
purposely by opposers of what is known 
as orthodoxy, to build up theories or doc- 
trines antagonistic to the faith of all 
evangelical Churches. 

The process of argumentation is short 
and taking. Assuming that the relation 
of children is properly predicated of the 
act of creation, the conclusion is easily 
reached that all whom God created are 
His children, and children because He 
created them, and that they can no more 
cease to be His children than they can 
cease to be His creatures. The absurdity 
of identifying all creatures with the chil- 
dren of God does not appear without a 
little effort of the mind to distinguish be- 
tween things that differ. 



Introduction IS 

The author of this Treatise has dis- 
covered the difference, and seen clearly 
that the foundation of the family relation 
is redemption and not creation, and force- 
fully points out that the opposite view is 
Universalism, whether the holder intends 
it or not. It is against this false concep- 
tion and erroneous use of a most precious 
doctrine that he makes solemn protest in 
this volume, and the reader will be im- 
pressed that he protests with good reason, 
and with arguments that cannot be gain- 
said or turned aside as without weight. 

Some months ago the author read an 
Essay on this subject before the Meth- 
odist Ministers' Meeting in Chicago, 
which awakened considerable interest, 
and, much to the surprise of the writer of 
this introductory note, it was severely 
criticised by preachers who are not sup- 
posed to entertain loose notions on the 
fundamentals of Christianity. This writer 
took occasion to indorse the Essay, and 
after the meeting was over felt moved to 



16 Introduction 

commend it in conversation with its au- 
thor, and suggested to him the idea of en- 
larging it so as to give it to the pubHc in 
the form of a small volume for general 
circulation. It is not unlikely that it was 
in pursuit of this suggestion that our 
good brother has prepared the work now 
submitted to the public. Having made 
this suggestion, and having examined the 
manuscript before it was passed to the 
publishers, I do not hesitate to assume a 
share of responsibility for the appearance 
of the book. So far as its teaching is 
concerned, it seems to me that neither a 
Methodist nor any other orthodox or 
evangelical minister or layman can dissent 
with any consistency. 

It recognizes the supreme fact that God 
is the creator of all things, and the addi- 
tional fact that Jesus Christ is the only 
begotten Son of God, full of grace and 
truth. It accords to man his high place 
and dignity in the order of creation, his 
rightful claim to sonship in the Divine 



Introduction 17 

family based on the possession of the 
moral image of his Maker so long as he 
retained it, and recognizes his moral free- 
dom to the extent of having power to for- 
feit by disobedience the Divine likeness 
and his exalted relationship. Upon the 
fact of his possessing this pov^er of for- 
feiture turns issues of momentous import. 
If he did not possess it, and did not, in 
fact, forfeit the Divine image and lose his 
relation to God as a child, there can be no 
distinct meaning in the allegation that 
Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son, nor 
any worthy reason for his incarnation or 
mission in this world as the Redeemer and 
Savior of men. The whole scheme of 
Redemption hinges on this great for- 
feiture by sin. On it also depends the 
necessity of whatever is included in the 
Scriptural doctrines of reconciliation, re- 
generation, and adoption. If there is 
reality in the processes described by these 
terms, there is reality in the forfeiture 
and the recovery. God does not reconcile 



18 Introduction 

the unalienated. He does not regenerate 
those who have never become unregener- 
ate. He does not adopt His own children, 
those of His own household. If these 
words have any meaning, they have 
meaning of most tremendous significance. 
They mean all that our Author attributes 
to them, and more than can possibly be- 
long to them if the hypothesis of the uni- 
versal Fatherhood be true. 

The universality of God's love is not 
set aside by the ground taken in this work. 
He loved all men, not because they were 
by creation His children, but His love 
reached out to them in their alienation 
while they were not His children, and 
was so deep that it sought to make them 
His children by adoption and grace. By 
denying the power of forfeiture of the 
filial relation, we deny the richest quality 
in the love of God, as well as the true 
significance of redemption, and all that is 
vital in the processes of gospel salvation. 

First of all, God is the Father of our 



Introduction 19 

Lord Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son ; 
and then He is the Father o£ all that 
receive His Son, and secure a spiritual 
union with Him. These are His children 
not through Adam, but through Jesus 
Christ. They become children not by be- 
ing created in Adam, but by being created 
anew in Jesus Christ; not by being born, 
but by being born again; not by being 
born of flesh, but by being born of the 
Spirit; not by generation, but by regener- 
ation. "As many as received him, to 
them gave he power to become the sons 
of God, even to them that believe on his 
name, who were born, not of blood, nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God." They become God's 
children by being born of God. This is 
plain, Scriptural, true, and in harmony 
with the whole system of redemption. 

In these days of rapid and superficial 
thinking along lines of the greatest im- 
portance, when Scriptural terms and 
phrases are being flippantly used to un- 



20 Introduction 

dermine the foundations of evangelical 
faith, it is refreshing to find a youngerly 
minister of progressive spirit and stu- 
dious habits, grasping the essence of the 
gospel and applying it courageously in 
the exposure of popular error. An occa- 
sional want in rhetorical dress is not to be 
accounted serious w^hen found in connec- 
tion with sound interpretation and logical 
force vigorously employed in * ^driving 
away erroneous and strange doctrines 
contrary to God's Word." Let the book 
be read with an eye to the truth it con- 
tains, and with a heart open to edification 
in the deep things of God, and the chief 
design of the author will be accomplished 
in the establishment of rational and Scrip- 
tural views of the "Fatherhood of God." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE 
SUBJECT 



Note. — All references in the text to 
the following works are made by number ; 
for example, (i : 137) means, Can I Be- 
lieve in God the Father? — William New- 
ton Clarke. Page 137. A superior figure 
refers to the column. Scriptural quota- 
tions are taken from the Revised Version, 
American Standard Edition, or what 
might be called more briefly, the Amer- 
ican Standard Version. 

A. — Books Teaching the Universal 
Fatherhood 

1. Can I Believe in God the Father? — 

William Newton Clarke. 

2. The Age of Faith.— Bradford. 

3. The Fatherhood of God. — Adams. 

4. Universalism. — Nye. 



22 Bibliography of the Subject 

5. The Works of William E. Charming, 

D.D.— Edition of 1888. 

6. Science and Health. — Mrs. Eddy. 

7. The Place of Christ in Modern The- 

ology. — Fairbairn. 

8. The Influence of Jesus. — Brooks. 

9. The Kingdom of God. — Bruce. 

10. St. Paul's Conception of Christianity. 

— Bruce. 

11. New Testament Theology. Vol. I. 

— Beyschlag. 

12. New Testament Theology. Vol. II. 

— Beyschlag. 

13. The Teaching of Jesus. Vol. I. — 

Wendt. 

14. The Teaching of Jesus. Vol. II. — 

Wendt. 

15. Man and His Divine Father. — ^John 

C. C. Clarke, 

16. The Theology of an Evolutionist. — 

Abbott. 

17. The Christian Life. — Bowne. 

18. The Fatherhood of God. — Crawford. 

(Out of print.) 

1 8 J. The Fatherhood of God.— Lidgett. 



Bibliography of the Subject 23 



B. — Books Teaching the Condi- 
tional Spiritual Fatherhood 

19. Aspects of Christian Experience. — 

Merrill. 

20. The Son of Man. — Alexander. 

21. McClintock and Strong's Cyclopae- 

dia. Vol. I. 

22. McClintock and Strong's Cyclopae- 

dia. Vol. X. 

2}^. Mile-Stone Papers. — Steele. 

24. Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. I. — 

Hastings. 

25. Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. II.— 

Hastings. 

26. Biblical Theology of the New Testa- 

ment. Vol. I. — Weiss. 
2y. Biblical Theology of the New Testa- 
ment. Vol. II. — Weiss. 

28. A Review of Bowne's ''Christian 

Life."— Wilson. 

29. The Ministry of the Spirit. — Gordon. 

30. The Epistles of John. — Westcott. 

31. The Fatherhood of God. — Wright. 

(Out of print.) 



24 Bibliography of the Subject 

32. The Fatherhood of God. — Candlish. 

(Out of print.) 

33. Atonement. — Merrill. 

C. — Miscellaneous Works 

34. The New Life in Christ. — Beet. 

35. The Atonement in Christ. — Miley. 

36. A Compendium of Christian The- 

ology. Vol. II. — Pope. 

37. Systematic Theology. Vol. 11. — 

Miley. 



SYLLABUS OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

1. Preface 5 

2. Introduction by Bishop Merrill 13 

3. Bibliography of the Subject 21 

4. Syllabus of Contents 25 

Occasion and Purpose of This Book 

1. A fundamental and cherished doctrine... ZJ 

2. Involved with the greatest dangers 38 

3. The true view 39 

4. Final test of the true doctrine 40 

5. The purpose of this book 41 

PART I 

THEORIES OF THE UNIVERSAL FATHERHOOD 

A. — Described 

1. The questions at issue 45 

2. A necessity of creation, Ontology, Ethics, 

Sociology, Redemption 46 

B. — Refuted 
(a) Unfortunate in its Associations 
Its genesis, in Christian Science, Mor- 
monism, Unitarianism and Universal- 
ism 48 



26 Syllabus of Contents 

(b) Not Grounded in any such Necessity as Is 

Alleged page 

1. No necessity of creation 51 

2. No ontological necessity 55 

3. No ethical necessity 56 

4. No sociological necessity 58 

5. Not necessary to redemption 59 

6. No basis in any necessity 66 

(c) Inconsistencies of Orthodox Writers who 

Attempt to Defend This Doctrine 

1. Man by creation has the nature of a son 

of God, and yet he must receive a new 

nature 66 

2. Sonship is natural, universal, indestruct- 

ible, and yet voluntary 67 

3. We all are, and yet we must become sons 

of God 68 

4. We are by natural birth the sons of God, 

and yet we must be born of God 71 

5. Consistency impossible 71 

(d) Reductio ad Absurdum 

1. God, the Father of Animals 74 

2. God, the Father of the Devil 74 

3. God loves the Devil 76 

4. Hell inhabited only by children of God. . . 76 

5. Intolerable implications of the doctrine. . 76 

6. Universalism the only alternative 78 

C. — The Major Premise of Universalism 

Responsibility of Christian teachers; dan- 
ger of false doctrine. . « 79 



Syllabus of Contents 27 

(a) The Only Logical Home of This Doctrine 

PAGE 

1. Inconsistent with evangelical truth ». 80 

2. Tendency to Universalism 80 

3. Avowed by Universalists 85 

{h) Their Major Premise Admitted, the Logic 
of Universalists Is both Scriptural and 
Unanswerable 

1. Universalism's logical chain 86 

(i) Sons have the Father's nature 86 

(2) If by creation, no need of the new 

birth 86 

(3) Need only a development inevitable. 87 

(4) All under God's parental govern- 

ment; not subject to punishment, 

but only to discipline 88 

( 5 ) Atonement unnecessary 89 

(6) "If children, then heirs" 90 

2. A conclusion unscriptural, but logical.... 92 

(c) Universalism' s Major Premise Repudiated 
as False 

1. The new birth essential to sonship 94 

2. The new birth, and hence the sonship, is 

conditional 97 

3. Only children under a parental govern- 

ment c 98 

4. Others under God's moral government.. 100 

5. These are liable to punishment 104 

(i) Animus of the doctrine, to get rid 

of punishment 104 



28 Syllabus of Contents 

PAGE 

(2) Punishment, a Scriptural word and 

idea 106 

(3) Punishment has ends worthy of Di- 

vine goodness 108 

(4) Punishment necessary to these ends, no 

(5) Punishment revealed in Scripture, 

the final authority 115 

(6) Men liable to punishment 118 

6. Forgiveness and the new birth grounded 

in the Atonement 118 

7. Sonship not by nature, but by grace 

through Christ 121 

8. Universalism falls 122 

(d) A Most Cruel Deception 

1. Not "broadness/* but truth is essential... 122 

2. Solves no problems 123 

3. Leads to an infatuation cruel and decep- 

tive 125 

4. A doctrine none can afford to hold or 

teach 126 

D. — Sonship Is Alienable 

1. The determining question 128 

2. Not a natural or physical relationship 129 

3. A moral and spiritual relationship 130 

4. Based on God's grace and conditioned 

by man's freedom 133 

5. Such relationship may be forfeited 134 

6. Filial likeness of nature forfeited 142 

7. Examples of forfeited sonship 145 

8. Fatherhood and sonship the normal rela- 

tion between God and man 146 

9. Sin causes an abnormal relationship 146 



Syllabus of Contents 20 

PART n 

THE TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE 

A. — The Old Testament _.^^ 

PAGE 

1. Man created in the image of God 152 

2. His filial nature lost by sin 153 

3. Two classes of men since the Fall 156 

4. The Hebrews as a nation called children 

of God 158 

5. Malachi 2 : 10 160 

6. Intimations of individual sonship i6i 

7. A Divine family; a fatherly nature in 

God 162 

8. Prophecies of a gracious personal son- 

ship 163 

9. Summary of Old Testament teaching.... 164 

B. — The Doctrine Taught by Jesus 

1. A new conception of God 166 

2. Father, the natural name with Jesus i66 

3. Provides that all may be children. .. . 167 

(a) The Claim that Jesus Teaches the Universal 
Fatherhood of God 

1. By W. N. Clarke, Bruce, Wendt, Bishop 

Brooks o 168 

2. Proposed Gospel proofs 175 

(i) John 20: 17 176 

(2) The Lord's Prayer 176 

(3) Sermon on the Mount 179 

(4) Parable of the Prodigal Son 182 



30 Syllabus of Contents 

(b) Jesus Makes the Relationship Universally 
Possible, but Not thereby Actually Universal 

PAGE 

1. God, both King and Father 187 

2. The Christian name for God 189 

(i) Not often used with reference to 

men « . . 189 

(2) The name in God's kingdom and 

family 190 

(3) Kingdom and family co-extensive... 191 

3. Jesus perpetuates the twofold classifica- 

tion of mankind 192 

(1) Unbelievers rebuked for calling God 

their Father 193 

(2) Not physical origin, but moral and 

spiritual likeness 197 

(3) Jesus settles it, that some are not 

children 198 

4. A change of relationship required » . 199 

5. God's family graciously open to all 200 

(i) By means of the new birth 201 

(2) Through faith in Christ 202 

6. Privileges of God's children. . . . o 203 



C. — The Teaching of the Apostles 

(a) View of the Advocates of the Universal 
Fatherhood 

1. Great confusion 204 

2. "The offspring of God." Acts 17: 29 205 

3. "The Father of spirits." Heb. 12: 9 206 

4. "Father of all." Eph. 4:6 207 



Syllabus of Contents 31 

(b) The Apostles Teach that Man's Sonship in 
the Divine Family is Conditional, 

PAGE 

1. The Bible harmonious with itself 2o8 

2. Still two classes 210 

3. Attempts at reconciliation 211 

(i) Ignored, or only a figure of speech.. 212 

(2) The method of Universalism 212 

4. Sonship by adoption 219 

5. Sonship through the new birth 220 

6. Likeness of nature by birth 221 

7. Sonship by grace 222 

8. Ground, condition, result, Witness and 

determining factor of sonship 223 

9. Sonship, the pledge of the inheritance... 224 
(i) Blessings of real sonship 225 

(2) Deception of fictitious universal son- 

ship 226 

(3) A sure basis of hope 228 

ID. Sonship conditional and universally pos- 
sible 229 

D. — Fatal to the Doctrine of the Universal 
Fatherhood, that it Is Not Grounded in 
Scripture 

1. Scripture ignored 230 

2. Based on imagination and sentimental- 

ism 231 

3. Scripture the only basis for a true 

doctrine 234 



32 Syllabus of Contents 



PART m 

THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERHOOD OF 
GOD AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 

A. — The Doctrine Stated „^^„ 

PAGE 

1. Fatherhood defined 239 

(1) The method a mystery 241 

(2) Begetting, not creating 242 

(3) Filiation corresponds to nature 243 

(4) A moral and spiritual relationship.. 243 

2. God eternally the Father 244 

3. His desire for sons. 244 

4. Man originally God's son 245 

5. Sonship lost by sin 246 

6. Provision for the restoration of sonship.. 246 

7. Sonship grounded in the Atonement.... 247 
(i) The issue between "Liberalism" and 

evangelical Christianity 247 

(2) Christ's sonship natural, ours gra- 

cious 250 

(3) Sonship made real by the new birth. 252 

8. Gracious sonship of infants 253 

9. Gracious sonship lost by sin 255 

10. Sonship restored by adoption and the new 

birth 256 

11. Witness of the Spirit to sonship 257 

12. The privilege of all 257 

B. — Correlated with Other Facts 

1. Sin 259 

2. Salvation 261 

3. Punishment 263 

4. Sorrow, prayer, and immortality 266 



Syllabus of Contents 33 

C. — The Only Basis of a Brotherly Brother- 
hood AND A True Sociology 

PAGE 

1. The supreme social need 268 

2. No basis in the universal Fatherhood. .. . 268 

3. Only basis in the true Fatherhood 270 

4. Results of this coming brotherhood 274 

D. — Relation of the Fatherhood to Ethics 
AND Evangelism 

1. Weakness of Universalism 277 

2. A sure basis in the true Fatherhood 281 



E. — Fatherhood Exalted and Hope Inspired 

1. No advantage in the false doctrine 284 

2. A real universal hope 285 

3. Fatherhood and sonship exalted 289 



CONCLUSION 

1. The doctrine of the Bible 293 

2. Other theories groundless, but danger- 

ous 294 

3. A doctrine consistent and sufficient 294 

4. The obligation not to deceive 295 

5. Our present task 296 

6. Man's need, to know God as Father 298 

7. The most cruel deception 299 

8. The hope that is an anchor of the soul . . . 300 

Scripture Index 305 

General Index 307 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 



THE 

FATHERHOOD OF GOD 



Occasion and Purpose of This Book 

The beloved disciple John, seeking to 
give expression to the highest manifes- 
tation of the Divine love, a fundamental 

and cherished 

exclaims: Behold what doctrine 
manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
upon us, that we should be called children 
of God" ( I Jno. 3 : i ) . Paul finds the 
chief privilege of Christians in this, that 
they are no longer servants, but sons, hav- 
ing "received the Spirit of adoption, 
whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Rom. 
8: 15; Gal. 4: 6). And when Jesus 
would have His disciples realize the most 
blessed relationship of earth or heaven, 



38 Grave Dangers 

He taught them the use of the name most 
frequently on His own Hps, that they 
might say, "Our Father" (Matt. 6: 9). 
How unHke the generally prevalent con- 
ception of God as the Unknown and Un- 
knowable, or the stern and hateful Despot, 
is this Christian view of God as a Father ! 
Truly, one of the most fundam^ental and 
greatly to be cherished doctrines of our 
faith is that of the Fatherhood of 
God. 

But the more we appreciate this fact, 
and the more firmly we hold to this doc- 
trine, the greater grows the 

Grave dangers 

regret that the thought of the 
Divine Fatherhood has become involved 
with the gravest dangers. In the revolt 
from an unworthy conception of Deity, 
the commendable effort to come to a truer 
and really Christian view of God, has car- 
ried many of its promoters to the opposite 
extreme — ^to a view of the Fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man which is 
fundamentally false and whose "tend- 



The True View 39 

ency," says Bishop Merrill, "is evil, and 
only evil. It strikes at the foundation of 
the Gospel by building up a false notion of 
the Divine family and removing the ne- 
cessity of the new birth" (19: 150). This 
doctrine is called "The Universal Father- 
hood of God," and rests upon the assump- 
tion that all men are by nature through 
their first or physical birth children of 
God. 

The true view, we think, will be found 
to be, that the filial relationship of man to 
God is not physical, but spir- 

The true view 

itual ; not grounded m nature, 
but in grace, not in creation, but in re- 
demption; that, for man to be a son of 
God, he must be born again, born of God ; 
and that, therefore, the Fatherhood of 
God, in His relation to man, while univer- 
sally possible, is not actually universal 
(except in infancy), but conditional and 
therefore limited. "The division," says 
Dr. William Newton Clarke, "is a sharp 
one, and very serious" (i : 137). 



40 Final Test of the True Doctrine 

There is great need that the atmos- 
phere about this subject should be clari- 
Finaitestof ficd. In common speech, 

the true 

doctrine very often in pulpit dis- 

course, and quite generally in the litera- 
ture of to-day, it seems to be taken for 
granted that God is the Father of all men, 
that all men are sons of God. We say it 
seems to be taken for granted; for we 
never heard a speaker, and, with only 
two exceptions, we have found no au- 
thor, who attempts to establish the doc- 
trine of the universal Fatherhood by an 
exposition both of the apparently favor- 
able and unfavorable teachings of Scrip- 
ture, and generally little or no reference is 
made to what the Bible has to say upon 
the subject. The evident explanation of 
this defect is that the doctrine is not 
taught in the Scriptures. But the true 
doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood, no 
more than any other doctrine of religion, 
can be determined by "philosophical pre- 
conceptions" or "sentimental preference," 



Purpose of This Book 41 

but only by a valid expositioii of v/hat the 
Bible teaches. "To the law and to the 
testimony : if they speak not according to 
this word, surely there is no morning for 
them" (Is. 8 : 20). This "is the only rule, 
and the sufficient rule, both of our faith 
and practice." 

The purpose of this book is, first, to 
consider the theories of the universal Fa- 
therhood of God, in order to purpose of this 
make manifest the tendencies 
of the doctrine to undermine and destroy 
the faith of the Gospel ; secondly, to inter- 
pret the teaching of Scripture upon the 
subject of the Divine Fatherhood; and, 
thirdly, to define what we conceive to be 
the true doctrine of the Fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man, accom- 
panying this with a statement of its doc- 
trinal, ethical, and sociological signifi- 
cance. 



PART I 

THEORIES OF THE 
UNIVERSAL FATHERHOOD 



PARTI 

THEORIES OF THE UNIVERSAL 
FATHERHOOD 



A. — Described 

The two main questions at issue are 
thus stated by Dr. W. N. Clarke: "God's 
Fatherhood is natural, and The questions 
universal; God's Fatherhood 
is spiritual or religious, and therefore 
limited" (i: 135, 136). The distinction 
is fundamental. We heartily agree with 
the distinguished author, when he adds in 
his lectures before the School of Theology 
of Harvard University, "The division is a 
sharp one, and very serious" (i: 137). 
The following theories are put forth in 
defense of the former position. 

With the exception of Channing and 
Wendt, the advocates of the universal 
Fatherhood practically agree with Dr. W. 
N. Clarke in saying, "God is Father to 



46 A Necessity of Creation 

men, and men are sons of God, from 
A necessity of the very fact that He made 
them, and made them Hke 
Himself" (i: 139). 

A second theory is stated thus by Dr. 
J. C. C. Clarke: ''A being is under the 
Anontpiogicai mor^l laws, and in the moral 
necessiy relations of the system, of 

which he is a part, only so far as he is per- 
sonally ontologically related in that sys- 
tem. ... A moral being is made moral 
by his personally ontological relation to 
his Creator. . . . Moral law does not 
exist for any beings who are not, in some 
sense, Children of the Creator" (15 : 68). 

The same author adds a third theory. 

"Moral science demands inflexibly that all 

An ethical ^^^ ^^all be rccognized as 
necessity ^^j^^^^ ^^ ^j^^.^ Creator by 

such likeness of being, and to God's Spirit 
by such derivation of spiritual being, that 
the name 'Child of God the Father' is a 
proper and the best name for that rela- 
tion" (15:340). 



A Sociological Necessity 47 

Dr. Fairbairn thinks that "the unity 
of man" and "the principle , . , - , 

^ ^ A sociological 

of solidarity" are "made pos- necessity 
sible by the filial constitution of the race" 
(7:462). 

A fifth theoretical necessity this author 
finds in redemption. "With- Necessary to 
out the Fatherhood there '^ emption 
could be no Atoner and no Atonement" 
(7:484,485,438). 

B. — Refuted 
Neither a person nor a doctrine is to 
be condemned necessarily because found 
among associates of ques- a fundamental 

doctrine in 

tionable reputation; but our false systems 
universal habit of judging men by the 
character of those with whom they ha- 
bitually consort is not far astray; and 
when any particular doctrine is found to 
be lauded generally by men holding false 
and pernicious views, and especially when 
such a doctrine is discovered to be a cen- 
tral and fundamental pillar in their un- 



48 Genesis of the Doctrine 

scriptural or antiscriptural systems, it be- 
comes us to look carefully to its basis and 
tendencies before bidding it welcome into 
what we may hold to be the circle of 
truth. Thus are we put on guard against 
the doctrine of the universal Divine Fa- 
therhood, because it is 

(a) Unfortunate in its Associations 

Says Dr. A. J. Gordon (29: 109), 

^^Milton probably gives the true genesis of 

Genesis of the ^his doctrinc in these words, 

which he puts into the mouth 

of Satan: 

** * The son of God I also am, or was ; 
And if I was, I am; relation stands: 
All men are sons of God/ " 

— Paradise Regained^ iv, 817. 

Whether Dr. Gordon is correct in this or 
not, his position is certainly in harmony 
with the following associations of the 
doctrine. 

One of the' ideas of Christian Science is 
that of God "as one Father, with His uni- 
versal family" (6: 568). Here too we 



In Christian Science 49 

find the recent idea of the Motherh(x>d 
of God. "As Elias repre- mchrisuan 
sents the Fatherhood of God, 
through Jesus, so the Revelator (Rev. 
12: i) completes this figure with woman, 
as the spiritual idea or type of God's 
Motherhood" (6: 554). ''We have not 
as much authority, in Divine Science, for 
considering God masculine, as we have 
for considering him feminine'' (6: 510). 
It is strange that the New Testament, in- 
stead of calling God Father 256 times, 
does not speak of Him as Mother 129 
times and Father only 127 times! 

The Mormons hold very literally that 
"God's Fatherhood is natural and univer- 
sal," because they hold that 

In Mormonism 

we are His children by pro- 
creation. "He (Adam) is our Father and 
our God, and the only God with whom 
we have to do." "When our Father 
Adam came into the garden of Eden, 
he came into it with a celestial body, 
and brought Eve, one of his wives, with 



50 In Unitarianism and Universalism 

him."^ "Each God, through his wife or 
wives, raises up a numerous family of sons 
and daughters/'^ And so here too we have 
the idea of a heavenly Mother. ''Man has 
not only a Father in heaven, but a Mother 
also," and therefore "Man, that is, his 
spirit, is the offspring of Deity, not in any 
mystical sense, but actually."^ Here is a 
"natural" relationship of man to God 
sufficiently emphasized, it would seem, to 
satisfy the most ardent advocates of the 
natural and universal Fatherhood. 

Says R. R. Shippen (22: 646), Uni- 
tarians "believe in the one God as the 
In Unitarianism Creator of the univcrse and 

and 
Universalism Father of all SOUls, . . . 

of the sinner as of the saint." And ac- 
cording to R. Eddy (22: 662), Univer- 
salists hold "that it is fundamental in the 
revelation through Christ that God is the 
Father of the spirits of all flesh." 

^Journal of Discourses, vol, i, p. 50- The quotations 
from and references to Mormon works are taken from 
tracts sent out by the "League for Social Service." Josiah 
Strong, President. 

2 The Seer. vol. i, p. 37. 

^ New Witness for Qod, p. 46?. 



No Necessity of Creation 51 

Believers in this doctrine may boast of 
some very good company; but their sus- 
picions against its truthfulness ought to 
be aroused by the fact that it is a funda- 
mental doctrine in some systems which do 
not preach the New Testament Faith, but 
another gospel, upon the proclamation of 
which there is pronounced, not a blessing, 
but an anathema (Gal. i: 8, 9; Ezek. 
13: 10-16). 

Coming directly to a consideration on 
its merits of the doctrine of the universal 
Fatherhood of God, it is to be noted that 
it is 

(&) Not Grounded in any such Neces- 
sity as Is Alleged 

God is not man's Father because He cre- 
ated him. That this is the doctrine of 
Scripture, will be made clear no necessity of 
in the Second Part of this 
discussion. The question is now, Is there 
any necessity in the nature of things re- 
quiring that God shall be the Father of 



52 No Necessity of Creation 

any of His creatures simply because He 
is their Creator, and which would there- 
fore lead us to reexamine the validity of 
our Biblical argument and exegesis, or 
to conclude that Scripture is not in har- 
mony with the necessity of things ? Chan- 
ning (5: 296) answers this claim thus: 
"God is our Father, not merely because He 
created us, or because He gives us enjoy- 
ment; for He created the flower and the 
insect, yet we call Him not their Father/' 
If by the marvelous advances of science, 
the unthinkable should ever become pos- 
sible, and the chemist should turn out of 
his laboratory a live being, and that being 
should possess many marvelous resem- 
blances to the chemist himself, such a be- 
ing, thus produced, would not be the son 
of the chemist. In other words, filial re- 
lationship can never be created or made, 
but can only be begotten. 

It is replied that God is the Father of 
all, not simply because of creation, but be- 
cause He has made all men like Himself, 



No Necessity of Creation 53 

First, let it be remembered that this is to 
abandon the position that fatherhood in- 
heres in the Creator as such, so that the 
fact of His being our Creator, in and of 
itself, has nothing to do with His being 
our Father. And, secondly, it is to as- 
sume that fatherhood and sonship involve 
a likeness of nature between father and 
son, that is, that "to be a parent is to com- 
municate a kindred nature'' (5: 1004, 
296; i: 139). We must not forget that 
we are dealing with men since the Fall, 
and, if the Fall be denied, then with sinful 
men as we find them. Has man naturally 
a nature of sufficient likeness to God, to 
entitle him to be called a son of God? 
Unitarians and Universalists, of course, 
reply in the affirmative, holding that 
man's "nature is not corrupt and ruined" 
(22 : 646), and "denying that depravity is 
natural" (4: 30). The limits of this 
treatise will not permit a discussion of the 
question of depravity. We can only refer 
to the Scriptural exposition which will 



54 No Necessity of Creation 

show that the depravity of man's nature is 
natural (p. 213 flf.), and submit the propo- 
sition that the only sufficient explanation 
of universal sin is an equally universal 
natural depravity, and call attention to 
the fact that the doctrine of the univer- 
sal Fatherhood of God is based on a 
denial of the Scriptural doctrine of native 
depravity. 

But whatever may be the native quality 
of man's nature, it is generally allowed 
that man is in fact sinful. Now, is there 
a sufficient likeness between man's sinful 
personality and the holy personality of 
God, for man to be a son of God? The 
filial relation, it is admitted, depends upon 
a likeness of nature. But a holy nature in 
man is not a necessary condition, since ne- 
cessitated holiness is an impossibility and 
a contradiction of terms, but is condi- 
tioned on the free choice of the individual. 
Therefore sonship, which is not the out- 
growth of creation alone, but is existent 
only when there is a kindred nature be- 



No Ontological Necessity 55 

tween father and son, is not a necessary 
and universal relationship of man to God, 
but is conditioned on man's choice of the 
holy character of God to be his character. 
Sonship in the Divine family is not a phys- 
ical, but a moral and spiritual, relation- 
ship, and is therefore dependent on moral 
and spiritual conditions, and these in turn 
are dependent on man's free choice. This 
brings us to the truth which will appear in 
the beginning of the Biblical discussion 
(p. 152), and is sufficient to show that 
there is no necessity in the relation of the 
creature to the Creator which would com- 
pel a denial or a revision of the teaching 
of Scripture: namely, that sonship is 
grounded, not in creation, but in the new 
creation ; that it is a relationship, not from 
nature, but by grace. 

Neither is there any ontological neces- 
sity for this doctrine. Dr. J. C. C. Clarke 
only assumes that man's no ontological 
"personally ontological rela- ^^^^^^^ ^ 
tion to his Creator" is a filial relation 



56 No Ethical Necessity 

(15: 68). His only attempt at proof is 
the assertion that "in the consciousness of 
spirit-being there is a line of conviction 
. . . that the souls of human persons 
are in a true sense children of their Cre- 
ator" (15: 67). His assumption must 
suffer the same fate as the previously con- 
sidered assumption that God is Father 
just because He is Creator, and for the 
same reasons. Since it was made appar- 
ently only in the interest of moral science, 
it can stand only as the next assumption to 
be considered stands. 

No one will deny that moral law can 
exist only for free moral beings, and that 
No ethical ^^^ ^^ subjcct to moral law 

necessity 1 t • -o i. 

because he is a person. But 
Dr. Clarke's assertion that "moral science 
demands inflexibly that all men shall be 
recognized as children of God" (15: 
340), and that "moral law does not exist 
for any beings who are not, in some sense, 
Children of the Creator" (15: 68), falls 
to the ground, because he nowhere shows 



No Ethical Necessity 57 

that all free moral agents must necessarily 
be children of God ; because we have seen 
that no necessity in the nature of things 
makes such a relation essential; neither 
does the Scripture; and also because, on 
Dr. Clarke's own showing, man's relation 
to the Creator need not be a relation of 
sonship in order that moral obligations 
may be incurred; for he says that "the 
consciousness of the ownership that in- 
heres in causation is itself the foundation 
and authority of what we call the law of 
rightness in the universe, or Moral Law/' 
that "the word ought means" to "a free- 
willed person, like a man," "the authority 
and rights of The Creator as The First 
Cause," that "only as a Cause has God a 
right to govern" (15: 56, 57, 92). But 
if "only as a Cause," then surely He must 
not necessarily be a Father. We cannot 
think of God apart from His right to rule 
the universe and all that is therein ; nor of 
any finite personal intelligence apart from 
his moral obligation to obey the sovereign 



58 No Sociological Necessity- 

God; and these conceptions are not de- 
pendent on any filial or fatherly relations. 
So gratuitous is the assertion of man's 
universal sonship, that it can be omitted 
entirely even from Dr. Clarke's own state- 
ment of "the chief principles" of his phi- 
losophy of the New Testament, without in 
the least affecting the validity of the sys- 
tem (15:299,300). 

The theory that this doctrine is neces- 
sary to the unity and solidarity of the 
. , . , race, is also without founda- 

No sociological ' 

necessity ^j^jj^ Doubtless this Condi- 

tion would be secured by an inalienable 
"filial constitution of the race" (7: 462), 
if such a state were actual or possible. 
But just as satisfactory an explanation is 
this, that both were made possible and 
necessary by the fact that God "made of 
one every nation of men to dwell on all 
the face of the earth" (Acts 17: 26), and 
also that all are descendants of one com- 
mon earthly father. The first fact holds, 
even when the evolutionist denies the sec- 



No Redemptive Necessity 59 

ond. The unity and solidarity of the race 
grow out of the unique and mutual con- 
stitution of mankind, regardless of any 
aiial relationship to God. The higher con- 
ception of brotherhood will be considered 
later (p. 268 ff.)- 

So complete is the failure to establish 
this doctrine on the theory that it is neces- 
sary to redemption, that the ^,^.,,^,^,^,^ 
opposite is the true Scrip- J^i^^jfoT^'^ ^"^ 

,1 .^. /-, TN necessary to but; 

tural position. Says Dr. a result of 

_ . , . , ^ _ - redemption 

Fairbairn (7: 484, 485), 
*'The essence and act of sacrifice was the 
surrender of the Son by the Father, . . . 
and so we may say, without the Father- 
hood there could be no Atoner and no 
Atonement; but with the Fatherhood the 
Atoner and the Atonement could not but 
be." But this can mean only that Father- 
hood and Sonship were essential relations 
in the Godhead, and not that this Father- 
hood must be universal in its relation to 
man, and especially at all stages of his 
eternal career. 



60 Reply to Fairbairn 

But he has said previously that the end 
desired by the Godhead in creation "may 
be described as the realization of external 
relations correspondent to the internal ; in 
other words, the creation of a universe 
which should be to God as a son, while He 
was to it as a Father" (7: 446, 447). We 
have no disposition to deny, but rather to 
join in emphasizing this fact. But while 
man is free and that freedom is used so 
largely as it is in the choice of sin, it can- 
not be claimed that every end Divinely 
desired is always and in every individual 
realized. God may and does desire, and 
uses every available means to bring it to 
pass, that every man shall be His son ; but 
man could not be a son of God without 
being free, and, being free, he may act the 
fool and choose a Satanic, instead of a 
Divine character and conduct, and be a 
child of the Devil and not a child of God. 
When, therefore, Fairbairn says that, "if 
the motives and ends of God in the crea- 
tion of man were paternal, then man's 



Reply to Fairbairn 61 

filial relation follows" (7: 446), it must 
be replied that this could be true only in 
the original creation and now in infancy 
— that is, in man's irresponsible state ; but 
that, when man comes to the state of re- 
sponsible freedom, his filial relation is 
conditioned on his choice, and does not 
stand, ''however unworthy a son he may 
prove himself to be," except in "the mo- 
tives and ends of God." And this is in 
perfect harmony with Fairbairn's later 
and truer statement that "the affinity of 
nature and the filial relation" between 
God and man "are ideal, as conceived and 
purposed of God — not actual, as mani- 
fested in man and realized in history." 
This is "through sin" (7: 474). 

Again, Fairbairn says : "Under a pure- 
ly legal government the salvation of the 
criminal is impossible, but under a regal 
fatherhood the thing impossible is the 
total abandonment of the sinner. If sal- 
vation happens under the former, it is by 
other means than the forensic and the ju- 



62 Reply to Fairbairn 

dicial ; if loss is irreparable under the lat- 
ter, the reason is not in the Father. And 
so we may say, in judgment the legal 
sovereign is just, but the paternal is gra- 
cious. The one reigns that he may pre- 
vent evil men from injuring the gopd, but 
ihe other reigns that evil may cease by 
evil men being saved" (7 : 438). To this 
it may be replied: First, regardless of 
any doctrine or relation of fatherhood, no 
Being that we could think of rationally as 
God could permit a race of sinners to be 
brought into a state of hopeless ruin, with 
no provision made for their salvation. 
The infinite perfection of justice makes 
such a condition as unthinkable as any 
imagined universal fatherly relationship. 
Secondly, the learned author denies the 
possibility of salvation under a legal gov- 
ernment, and then in the next sentence 
assumes that it may happen "by other 
means than the forensic and the judicial.'^ 
But by the very terms employed — "a 
purely legal government" — the paternal 



Reply to Fairbairn 63 

relationship toward those who are yet 
to be saved is excluded, and this vitiates 
the claim that an existing universal 
Fatherhood is essential in order to sal- 
vation. Thirdly, as long as man remains 
man, and therefore free, "the total aban- 
donment of the sinner" must be conceived 
as a possibility — aye more, as a Divinely 
revealed certainty — even if the Ruler is a 
"regal Father.'' Fourthly, the reason of 
irreparable loss is never in God, whether 
He be the Father of all or not. Fifthly, 
the elements of justice and grace are not 
inherent in fatherhood as such; for one 
may be a father and the very embodiment 
of injustice and ungraciousness. They 
are inherent in the perfections of Deity, 
and are not conditioned on His fatherly 
relationship. God will protect the good 
and seek to save the sinning, whether He 
is a Father to any man or not ; otherwise 
He would not be God. The same is true 
of love and righteousness (7: 441, 442). 
But Fairbairn thinks that the universal 



64 Reply to Fairbairn 

Fatherhood is necessary in order to sal- 
vation, because, as he affirms, "without 
affinities love cannot live. And so for 
God to love man, man rtiiust be akin to 
God; for man to love God, God must be 
akin to man" (7: 442). Properly inter- 
preted, this is true. But the word "akin" 
IS a broad word. In illustrating its mean- 
ing the dictionary says, "the cat is akin to 
the tiger;" but there is no relation of 
fatherhood and sonship here — they simply 
belong to the same group of animals. And 
so God and man belong to the same class 
of intelligent moral personalities ; but this 
in itself does not involve the filial relation 
of man to God (pp. 152-155). Further- 
more, Dr. Fairbairn himself says that this 
"affinity of nature" is only an "ideal, as 
conceived and purposed of God — not ac- 
tual," because of sin (p. 61). It is 
enough that God and man belong to the 
same class of intelligent moral personali- 
ties, and tliat the "highest expression'* of 
"affinity of nature" between them, which 



A Result of Redemption 65 

is found "in Fatherhood and Sonship" 
(7: 473), is a possibility Divinely desired. 
God may and does love man, not because 
they are already akin in the highest sense, 
but because every one may be, and ought 
to become, a child of God — because God 
may thereby secure a son and the greatest 
happiness and well-being of one of His 
creatures. And this exalts the love of 
God. It is not extended to a child only, 
but "commended toward us, in that, while 
we were yet sinners" (Rom. 5: 8, 10; 
I Jno. 4: 10), "aliens,'^ "foreigners,'* and 
"not sons" (Heb. 12: 8), God so loved 
us as to give His Son (John 3 : 16), that 
we might have the right, privilege, and 
power "to become children of God" (John 
1 : 12). And so it becomes evident, both 
from Scripture and in the nature of 
things, not that the universal Fatherhood 
of God is necessary in order to the Atone- 
ment, but that the Atonement is necessary 
in order to make it possible that God 
might be the Father of any of the chil- 



66 No Basis for a Universal Fatherhood 

dren of men, over whom sin has had 
dominion. 

We have examined every basis (except 
the Scriptural) alleged in support of this 
^^, . .„_„ doctrine, and have found 

No basis m any ^ 

Snillrsl^*^^^ that there is no necessity in 

Fatherhood ,i , r ji - '^i 

the nature of things — neither 
a creative, ontological, ethical, sociolog- 
ical, nor redemptive necessity — requiring 
the reason to hold such a belief. Later we 
shall see also that it has no basis in the 
Word, and hence that both Scripture and 
the logic of necessity unite in condemning 
the doctrine and asserting the conditioned, 
and therefore limited, but universally pos- 
sible Fatherhood of God and sonship of 
man. 

(c) Inconsistencies of Orthodox Writers 
who Attempt to Defend This Doc- 
trine 

They tell us that man by creation has 
the nature of a son of God, and yet that 
he must receive a new nature. These po- 



Inconsistencies of the Orthodox 67 

sitions are not consistent, and yet in sub- 
stance they are constantly asserted in the 
same breath. Fatherhood and sonship 
must always "include the notion of a com- 
mon nature" between the father and the 
son. If man is the son of God by crea- 
tion, then for the same reason he has the 
nature of God, and no one with such a 
nature ever needs any other. 

Sonship is natural, universal, indestruc- 
tible, and yet voluntary. We know that 
those who thus speak, attempt to recon- 
cile their statements on the theory of "two 
sonships, natural and spiritual, universal 
and special" (i: 143; 18: 165); but we 
know also that, if that "natural sonship" 
is anything more than a mere name, if the 
relation between God and man arising 
from creation "is in a most real sense a 
relation of Parent and offspring, Father 
and child," and that "such sonship is of 
course indestructible" (i: 138), then all 
talk about "voluntary sonship" (i: 148) 
is meaningless. We are the sons of God 



68 Inconsistencies of the Orthodox 

by creation and nature, or we are not. If 
we are, and if that sonship is indestructi- 
ble, then it may be consistent to speak of 
"an experience in which sonship is ful- 
filled, ... the higher thing that the 
New Testament tells of (i : 139), but it 
is inconsistent to speak of a "voluntary 
sonship," or of "becoming His sons in- 
deed" (i: 145). If indestructible son- 
ship results from creation, then there is 
no such thing as "voluntary sonship f for 
sonship is sonship, and that "higher thing 
that the New Testament tells of" is not 
in itself sonship, but only the fruit- 
age of sonship. But if we are not the 
sons of God by creation, then there 
is a "voluntary sonship," and such a 
sonship IS conditional and never can 
be universal, unless all shall receive it 
voluntarily. 

We all are, and yet we must become, 
sons of God. This is an inconsistency 
universally necessary among all evangel- 
ical Christians who attempt to hold the 



Inconsistencies of the Orthodox 69 

doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of 
God. Nothing is more clearly taught in 
the Bible than the necessity of sinners be- 
coming the sons of God. Hence the un- 
avoidable necessity of this inconsistency 
among those who try to hold to the Bible 
and to the unbiblical doctrine that all men 
are by nature sons of God. To say no 
more of authors already quoted/ where is 
the preacher, who ever gets anybody con- 
verted, that is not continually exhorting 
men to decide to become sons of God, and 
to this end reminding them that the right, 
privilege, and power for this very purpose 
are Divinely given (John i : 12), and that 
the Holy Spirit witnesses to the rela- 
tionship when it is accomplished (Rom. 
8: 16) ? Even so profound a scholar in 
the realm of philosophy as Professor 
Bowne does not escape this pitfall. He 
says, "But we are rebels. No, we are 
prodigal sons'' (17: 44) ; and "the super- 
natural reveals itself in this power to he- 

H: 145; 8: 14, 15; 7: 475, 479. 49i. 



70 Inconsistencies of the Orthodox 

come the children of God" (17: 61).* 
And, again, after contending for a uni- 
versal sonship, he speaks of the absurdity 
of any such notion, saying, 'That one 
should call himself the child of God while 
working the works of the Devil, is not to 
be thought of for a moment'' (17: 98). 
But why not, if sinners are not rebels, but 
only "prodigal sons'' f Dr. Crawford 
recognizes "a difficulty in reconciling 
those statements [of the Bible about be- 
coming sons of God by faith in Christ] 
with the conclusions we have already 
arrived at [that sonship is a common pre- 
rogative of all mankind] ; more particu- 
larly may there seem to be a difficulty in- 
volved in the Scriptural application of the 
word adoption. . . . For this word adop- 
tion properly denotes the introduction into 
a family of one who does not belong to it 
by birth" (18: 167). Notwithstanding 
his thought that this difficulty "admits of 
a satisfactory solution," the fact is that 

*The italics are ours. 



Consistency Impossible 71 

the foregoing quotation gives the proper 
and as we shall see the Scriptural (p. 219) 
meaning of the word adoption. Men do 
not adopt their own sons; neither does 
God. There is no consistent place for 
adoption in any scheme containing the 
notion of a universal Fatherhood. If we 
are, there is no place for our becoming, 
the sons of God. 

We are by natural birth the sons of 
God, and yet we must be born of God. 
Pray tell me, Why must I be born again, 
born of God, if I am already His son? 
What does birth mean, save the bringing 
into existence of a child f And if all men 
are inherently and naturally children, then 
on what basis can it be said to them, "Ye 
must be bom again"? Here is a glaring 
inconsistency. 

It is impossible to maintain a consistent 
evangelical phraseology on the assump- 
tion that all men are by consistency 

, 1 Mj r r* A impossible 

nature children of God. 

These learned men have not fallen into 



72 Consistency Impossible 

these inconsistencies inadvertently, but 
only because they have attempted to 
achieve the impossible: namely, to hold 
"the faith which was once for all delivered 
unto the saints" (Jude 3), in harmony 
with the inharmonious addition of the 
doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of 
God. One is surprised to find Dr. Craw- 
ford saying, "The proper object of faith 
is not the fact that we are sons of God, 
but the revealed truth that Christ is able 
and willing to make us so'' (18: 189). 
After coming to this sentence, the average 
reader is tempted to think that the author 
might have spared himself the pains of 
writing, and his readers the time of read- 
ing a book of 450 pages, prepared for the 
express purpose of maintaining, in reply 
to Professor Candlish, "that we are the 
sons of God.^' And the fact that he is, in 
this connection, speaking of saving faith, 
does not remove the inconsistency, not to 
say absurdity, of declaring that "Christ is 
able and willing to make us" the sons of 



Consistency Impossible 73 

God, who, according to his own theory, 
always have sustained that relationship as 
the inalienable right of intelligent crea- 
tures. The explanation is the fact that he 
has turned away from his controversy 
with the orthodox Candlish to contend 
with certain "liberalists" for a real saving 
faith that unites the believer to the Son of 
God. But in assuming such irreconcilably 
inconsistent positions, Dr. Crawford does 
not answer, but only gives away his case 
to Maurice and Robertson, whose latitudi- 
narianism he seeks to crush. But those in 
whose faith the doctrine of the universal 
Fatherhood finds a consistent place, do 
not belong to Dr. Crawford's school, and 
to such these words from Beyschlag are 
very applicable: "People are far more 
bent on saying something that is new, 
than on saying something that is tenable" 
(ii: xxi). And he might have added 
that there is a tremendous bent to-day 
toward such an emphasis upon Divine 
mercy as to exclude all practical consider- 



74 Reductio ad Absurdum 

ation of the awful but just as certain fact 
of sin and its terrible consequences. 

(d) Reductio ad Absurdum 

The foregoing inconsistencies approach 
very near to the realm of absurdity, if in 
fact they do not enter it. But passing 
them as lightly as possible, the doctrine of 
the universal Fatherhood certainly does 
suffer by the argument, reductio ad ab- 
surdum. 

If, according to Dr. Bradford, the fact 
of owing our being to God, constitutes 
r. ^ ^r. X-. 4.V, God our Father — in other 

God, the Father 

of animals words, if "the esscnce oi fa- 
therhood is the giving of life" (2: 64), 
then God is as much the Father of snakes 
and toads as He is ours, and they are also 
our brothers. 

If "to all rational beings everywhere 

the conceiving and originative rational 

God, the Father Being is Father" (i: 122), 

then God is the Father of the 

Devil and all evil spirits, and Satan is a 



God, the Father of the Devil 75 

brother to Christ and a son of God. If 
Dr. Clarke should seek to avoid this hor- 
rible, but unavoidable, inference from his 
doctrine, by falling back upon the addi- 
tional element in his definition that these 
"rational beings" must be "persons like 
Himself (i: 121, 139), it v^ould be suffi- 
cient to reply, first, that he does not con- 
sider sinful character a bar to sonship ; for 
he teaches that all men are sons of God ; 
and, secondly, that we understand that 
when the angel, who became the Devil, 
was created, he was pure, and therefore, 
according to every element of Dr. Clarke's 
own definition, a son of God, and, further, 
that "the paternal," and hence also the 
filial, "relation is natural, permanent, un- 
changing" (i: 129, 130), that "relation 
stands," and therefore, the Devil, being 
once a son of God by virtue of his crea- 
tion in the Divine image, is, and forever 
will be, a son of God, a brother of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

Every true father loves his child. God 



^6 God Loves the Devil 

surely is a true Father to whomsoever He 
God loves the ^^ a Father at all. But God 
is the Father of the Devil, be- 
cause He is the Father of "all rational be- 
ings everywhere/' The conclusion is in- 
evitable, that God must love the Devil. 
And if it should be doubted, Dr. Qarke 
proves it: "Grant creative intelligence,'* 
"and you are compelled to grant affec- 
tionate interest in kindred intelligence'' 
(i : 125), and we have seen that sin is no 
bar to his notion of "kindred." 

That the inhabitants of hell are all chil- 
dren of God, follows from the logically 
Hell inhabited ncccssary implication of the 

only by 

children of God universal Fatherhood, that 
Satan and all evil spirits and all the lost 
souls of men are and forever must be chil- 
dren of the Divine Father. 

Such are some of the logical corollaries 
which reduce this doctrine to an ab- 
intoierabie Surdity. If evcu their recital 

implications of 1 im 1 -» 

the doctrine has seemed like blasphemy, it 
should not be overlooked that this is due 



Intolerable Implications of the Doctrine 77 

to the character of the doctrine, of which 
these implications are the inevitable fruits. 
Some think it would be intolerable to en- 
tertain the idea that there is any man who 
is not a son of God. We find nothing de- 
rogatory to the Divine One in bringing 
into being such a personality as man, with 
such possibilities, and provision gracious- 
ly made for such a glorious destiny as is 
involved in being a son of God (pp. 203, 
225), even though man by sin should for- 
feit his Divine sonship. But to our view 
it is intolerable to think, as the doctrine of 
the universal Divine Fatherhood compels 
us to think, that God is the Father of the 
Devil, all evil spirits and lost souls, that 
the Devil is a brother of our Lord and be- 
loved of our Father, and that the whole 
population of the infernal regions consists 
of the children of God. We are taught to 
hate the Devil, but never to hate whom 
God loves — any child of God or anyone 
who may become God's child. 

There is one avenue of escape from 



78 Universalism the Only Alternative 

these abhorrent views, while holding to 
Universalism the belief that God is a uni- 

the only , -r^ , . , 

alternative versal Father, and that is to 
deny the existence of a personal Devil, 
and declare, not that the inhabitants of 
hell are children of God, but that there is 
no hell to be inhabited. We have been 
following out the necessities of logical 
thought from the standpoint of the ortho- 
dox Christian. There is another class of 
people who know not such a dilemma, but 
who, by making the foregoing denials and 
assuming, with the same indifference to 
the Holy Scriptures, the truth of the 
universal Fatherhood, conclude therefrom 
that salvation is the universal destiny of 
the race. This is their argument : God is 
the Father of all men and all men are chil- 
dren of God. But all the children of God 
are also His heirs and joint heirs with 
Jesus Christ (Rom. 8: 17; Gal. 4: 7). 
Therefore all men are the heirs of God 
and will be saved eternally. Thus is this 
doctrine made 



I 



Responsibility for False Doctrine 79 



C — The Major Premise of Univer- 

SALISM 

Many Christians and oftentimes Chris- 
tian teachers too quickly assume a doc- 
trinal position without care- Besponsibmty 

r 11 . 1 . 1 1-1 of Christian 

fully weighing the logical ^^.^^^^^^^^^ 
tendencies and inevitable re- ^^^^^^^ 
suits of their doctrine. A person already 
grounded in the most essential facts of the 
Gospel and whose faith is established by a 
clear experience of conscious salvation, 
may not himself be side-tracked religious- 
ly by coming to believe in some false view 
of Christian doctrine, but the result is like- 
ly to be very different and disastrous in 
the case of the average man who is not so 
grounded and who has no such experience. 
It is in the interests of such that we are 
bound to consider our positions more 
carefully than many reckless teachers and 
speakers are wont to do. We have been 
put on our guard already against this 
teaching by the fact of its unfortunate as- 



80 The Basis of Universalism 

sociations. If it shall be found to be true 
that this doctrine is at home only among 
such associations, and that its general 
tendency is to lead its adherents thither, 
then evangelical Christians will have rea- 
son enough to discard it forever. All who 
are tempted by the superficial attractive- 
ness of this conception, need to be re- 
minded of the very important fact that the 
doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of 
God is the basis of Universalism. 

(a) The Only Logical Home of This 
Doctrine 

Universalism is the only system, in- 
deed, in which this doctrine is logically 
Inconsistent at home. The profoundest 

with evangel- , i , , , . 

icai truth scholars have been unable to 

fit it consistently into any orthodox sys- 
tem (pp. 66-73). 

More or less tendency to Universalism 

Tendency, to vcry frequently is manifested 

mversaism j^ ^j^^ writings of those who 

teach it. Dr. Bradford is not supposed 



Tendency to Universalism 81 

to be a Universalist ; but his book does 
that system great service. All who hold 
the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood 
agree v^ith him in this : "No one can by 
any act of his own put himself beyond the 
reach of the Fatherhood of God" (2: 
185). What follows? "But we know 
that He cannot violate the eternal purpose 
of love, which is that somehow and some- 
time all His children shall reach the full- 
ness of the stature of Christ. . . . The 
Divine plan can be defeated by our folly 
no more than the falling of a meteor can 
disarrange the movement of the stellar 
universe If God cannot be de- 
feated, then must we not believe that His 
redemptive agencies will at length be vic- 
torious, and every child of God come to 
himself and return to his Father? Ap- 
parently that is the only possible con- 
clusion, but here we are met by the 
mysterious fact of freedom. . . . Will 
any forever resist that discipline? The 
possibility, I must admit; the proba- 



82 Tendency to Universalisni 

bility, I doubt" (2: 185, 186, 190, 
260, 267). 

Dr. Fairbairn states a line of ar- 
gument, from which he reaches conclu- 
sions that, despite his repudiation of 
Universalism, involve either mutual con- 
tradictions, or Universalism, or an 
eternal, instead of a temporal, probation 
for man (7: 438, 447, 457, 466, 468). 
If the universal Father can neither an- 
nihilate the sinner, nor surrender him 
to endless punishment, nor save him 
against his will, without allowing sin to 
be the victor, or conceding it a "recog- 
nized place and function," or destroying 
the personality of man — both the latter 
alternatives being also to allow sin the 
victory — then all men must come finally 
to accept salvation of their own free will, 
which involves future probation and Uni- 
versalism, or "the conflict must go on for- 
ever," God ever seeking to save by the ex- 
pulsion of sin, which involves an eternal 
probation with sin still the victor; for is 



Tendency to Universalism 83 

not defeat just as great whether it is ac- 
knowledged or not? If God cannot end 
that conflict, is not that a more decided 
defeat than the ending of sin by the an- 
nihilation of the sinner or by the inflicting 
of an eternal penalty that shall put an end 
forever to the operation of sin ? But, after 
all, is the failure to realize an end impos- 
sible in the nature of things — such as the 
salvation of a free person against his will 
— a defeat on the part of God ? Does He 
not remain Sovereign, and man simply 
defeat himself ? God carries out His pur- 
pose of willing the happiness of being on 
the only possible condition, the free sub- 
mission of the human will, and He also 
realizes His desire for sons; for if some 
will not meet the conditions of sonship, 
others will — His feast will be supplied 
with guests and His home with children. 
Against Dr. Fairbairn's notion of the 
wreck of the universe or a part of it, it 
must be remembered that the system — 
and all persons in it who choose to con- 



84 Tendency to Universalism 

form to the necessary and perfectly prac- 
ticable conditions — will be upheld and 
perfected and reach the goal, whatever 
may happen to those who will not be "in 
harmony with the good ends pursued'' 
(15 : 102). Consistent with the nature of 
things, this is the highest victory on the 
part of God. 

Having become entangled with this 
doctrine of God as a universal Father in 
an attempt to make it the interpreting 
principle in theology (7: 427, 428, 444, 
445), Dr. Fairbairn time and again 
plunges along the natural and logical 
course, until he sees the specter of Uni- 
versalism looming up before him, when he 
hesitates, retreats, starts again, moves 
with greater speed than ever, and stops 
the more suddenly, leaving himself at last 
in a position which may be likened aptly 
to that of a locomotive, which, by being 
reversed, has been brought to a stop on 
the brink of a chasm, the bridge over 
which has been burned away, and hangs 



Avowed by Universalists 85 

in teetering uncertainty, no one being able 
to tell whether the wrecking crew will 
reach there in time to pull it back, or 
whether more of the bank and road- 
bed will crumble and the engine be 
hurled headlong into the yawning abyss 
below. 

Universalists, of course, do not hesitate, 
but "emphasize the Fatherhood of God" 
as applying to "the sinful" as Avpwed by 

-- ,, 1 ^ X Universalists 

well as the good (4: 19, 20). 
We have noted the statements of Mr. 
Shippen, the Unitarian, and Mr. Eddy, 
the Universalist (p. 50). Dr. Adams, in 
one of the Universalists' Manuals of 
Faith and Duty, declares, "It is upon the 
sublime truth of the Divine Fatherhood 
that we build the faith in man's final holi- 
ness. . . . Upon any line of logic from this 
great thought, we come inevitably to the 
conclusion that mankind is destined to re- 
demiption from the thraldom of sin and its 
sequences" (3: 83, 84). 



86 Universalism's Logical Chain 

(b) Their Major Premise Admitted, the 
Logic of Universalisfs Is Both Scrip- 
tural and Unanswerable 
If the doctrine of the universal Father- 
hood be admitted as a premise, the logic 
universaiism's ^^ the Univcrsalist's conclu- 

logical chain . , ^ i. t. 1.1 

sion seems to us to be both 
Scriptural and unanswerable. Let him 
who can, while avoiding the inconsis- 
tencies and absurdities previously dis- 
cussed (pp. 66-78), break the logical 
chain. 

If all men by creation are children of 
God, then they are partakers of the Divine 
Sons have the nature; for there is always a 

Father's 

nature common nature between par- 

ent and child. "Identity of nature be- 
tween parent and child is essential to the 
idea of fatherhood'' (2: 59). 

If we are partakers of the Divine nature 
by creation or by our natural birth, then 
If by creation, the uew Creation, the new 

no need of the . 

new birth birth, regeneration cannot be 

shown to be a necessity; for their only 



Universalism's Logical Chain 87 

object is that we may be made over "after 
the image of Him that created" us (Col. 
3: 10). But there is no place for such a 
process in the case of those who are "con- 
stitutionally" in that likeness by "the 
native and essential nature of the soul/' 
and who "are by our very natures the chil- 
dren of God" (3: 15, 22, 23). 

For such natures — and such is the 
nature of all whose "birthright is inalien- 
ably SOnship" (3: 83), or Need only a 

development 

else language has no mean- inevitable 
ing — all that is necessary is a development 
which is "natural," "constructive," and 
"inevitable," "a necessity of the soul," "a 
normal and natural fact of man's experi- 
ence, as much in the nature of things as 
the change of the embryo into the child, 
and of the child into the man, . . . the 
evolution of a higher humanity out of a 
lower," "the step which every sinner will 
at last be constrained to take. . . by the 
necessities of his own nature, . . . the 
law of that constitution in which he was 



88 Universalism's Logical Chain 

formed" as a son of God (3 : 55, 56). But 
if the only thing necessary is a "construct- 
ive" work, rather than a reconstructive, 
then there is really no place for a new cre- 
ation, a new birth, but only for a develop- 
ment of the original life; for birth in- 
volves the bringing into existence of a 
new life and a change of relationship, or 
rather the creation of a new relationship 
— that of sonship. 

If all men inalienably are sons of God, 
then also they are under God's parental 
All under God^s government; and it follows 

ernment;^not that UO One is SUbject tO pun- 
subjectto - , . 

punishment, ishmcut, but Only to fatherly 
discipline chastiscmcut or discipline, 

"that what is called punishment is always 
disciplinary, and intended to restore" 
(2: viii), that "His authority over us, 
. • . His laws, . . . and all His pun- 
ishments . . . are parental, designed to 
prune, to restrain, and to heal" (4: 20), 
that the Devil, once, and therefore inal- 
ienably and forever, a son of God by his 



Universalism's Logical Chain 89 

native and essential nature, is not being 
''reserved in everlasting chains/' but is 
being disciplined under the ''parental gov- 
ernment" of his heavenly Father with the 
design that he shall be "healed" and "re- 
stored." "In modern times," says Pro- 
fessor J. S. Candlish, "such writers as 
F. D. Maurice, F. W. Robertson, et al., 
have made great use of the idea that all 
men are children of God, to exclude the 
doctrine of God's judicial dealings" 
(25:2202). 

If all men by nature are children of 
God, possessed of the Divine nature, un- 
der His parental govern- Atonement 

, 1 , 1 • i i unnecessary 

ment, and not subject to 
punishment, but only to fatherly disci- 
pline, the Atonement is unnecessary; for 
repentance is an all-sufficient basis of for- 
giveness in a parental government, as it is 
claimed that the parable of the Prodigal 
Son plainly shows (p. 185 ff.). Dr. Brad- 
ford concludes his argument on the ab- 
surdity of vicarious suffering as the 



90 Universalism's Logical Chain 

ground of forgiveness, by this indisput- 
able assertion : "Fatherhood needs only to 
know that the son has truly repented'' 
(2: 201-213). And it must also be true, 
if the only essential change in man is "a 
necessity of the soul" from the original 
and physical creation or birth — and this 
follows, if "we are by our very natures 
the children of God" — that this change or 
development cannot be conditioned on, or 
result from Christ's vicarious death, that 
it is not a matter of grace, but of nature. 

Universalists, while they have ignored 
Paul's theology (Rom. 8: 9, 14), never 

« If children ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^P ^^^ ^^S^^^ 

then heirs-' "if children, then hcirs." If 
all are sons, then all are heirs, and their 
destiny is secure on the ground of rightful 
inheritance. If this results from our 
natural relationship, then Universalism 
follows as a logical necessity. Weiss, 
speaking on the basis of sonship only 
through the new birth by faith, shows "a 
new ground ... of hope ... in the 



Universalism's Logical Chain 91 

nature of the relation of son, . . . that 
it confers a right to the inheritance. . . . 
A share in the glory is expressly laid claim 
to as the child's right, on the ground of 
inheritance. ... As the Son of God has 
already plainly attained to the inheritance 
of a share in the Father's Lordship (Heb. 
1 : 2), so also must the children of God 
... be conducted forward to the fa- 
therly glory" (Heb. 2 : 10) } The logic is 
the same, whatever the basis of sonship, 
or whoever may be the sons. If the argu- 
ment is correct — and who can dispute it 
successfully, and why should anyone wish 
to ? — that the nature of the relation of son 
confers a right to the inheritance, then 
there is no escape from Universalism, if 
we once accept the doctrine of the uni- 
versal Fatherhood of God. "If children^^ 
— that is all the Apostle wishes to know, 
and the one fact to which the Spirit bears 
witness — "if children, then heirs ; heirs of 
God, and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. 
^27: 61, 62, 218, 219. 



92 Universalism's Logical Chain 

8: 17; Gal. 4:7). If anyone should be 
inclined to doubt the necessity of this con- 
clusion, every doubt should be dispelled 
by remembering that the affirmation in 
question is that all men are by nature un- 
conditionally and inalienably sons of God. 
But sons have the nature of the father. A 
tree by a necessity of its life brings forth 
and develops fruit according to its kind. 
So too, if a man by creation uncondition- 
ally and inalienably has the nature of God, 
by "a necessity of the soul'' such a man 
must develop sooner or later "into the 
higher life," which involves an entrance 
into the inheritance of the sons of God. 
If the sonship and the nature belonging 
thereto are unconditional and inalienable, 
then the inheritance involved in sonship 
must also be inevitable. "If a son, then an 
heir through God'' (pp. 203, 225). 

Of course, the claim of Universalism, 
A conclusion that "salvation is the com- 

unscriptural . 

but logical mon dcstmy of the race (3 : 

19), is without Scriptural foundation. 



Universalism's Major Premise False 93 

But on the assumption of the truth 
of the doctrine of the universal Father- 
hood, that conclusion is logically inevi- 
table, and each of the links in the 
Universalist's logical chain — while the 
most of them in many particulars are ut- 
terly inconsistent with Biblical teach- 
ing — would be found to have a show of 
basis in the Word sufficient to make the 
whole system a powerful and dangerous 
delusion. 

(c) Universalism's Major Premise Repu- 
diated as False 

The fallacy of the logic of Universalism 
lies in the fact that it is built upon a false 
major premise — the doctrine of the uni- 
versal Fatherhood of God — a doctrine 
which has no basis in Scripture or in the 
nature of things. Pricking this bubble of 
false exegesis and fallacious reasoning, 
the entire structure falls to the ground of 
its own weight. 

Men are not sons of God by creation; 



94 The New Birth Essential to Sonship 

for the new birth is essential to a partici- 
The new birth pation in the Divine nature, 
sonship When Jesus said to Nicode- 

mus, "Ye must be born anew/' He was 
not speaking of a "constructive develop- 
ment" as an "inevitable necessity of the 
soul/' but of a reconstruction which must 
take place by a voluntary choice, if Nico- 
demus would partake of the Divine nature 
and hence become a son of God. This is 
evident from the reason alleged: "That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh" — flesh 
in the sense of depraved moral quality; 
"That which is born of the Spirit is spirit" 
— spirit in the sense of holy moral quality, 
resulting from a reconstruction and par- 
ticipation in the Divine nature, and hence 
leading to sonship in the Divine family by 
the only process that can make anyone 
really and by nature a member of any 
family, that is, by birth. Here is the rock 
which I fear is causing many besides 
avowed Universalists to founder. We are 
getting so "refined" that we imagine our- 



The New Birth Essential to Sonship 95 

selves already partakers of the Divine 
nature and children of the heavenly Fa- 
ther, with no necessity before us but a 
natural and inevitable development of 
what we now are; and we forget that it 
was to a truly refined and cultivated gen- 
tleman, scholar, religious teacher, and 
ruler, that Jesus said. Ye must undergo a 
transformation and reconstruction of 
nature as radical in its character as the 
process of birth — "Ye must be born 
anew." The terms of the Bible make it 
plain that, before a "constructive develop- 
ment" can begin in the case of an adult 
sinner, a radical reconstruction must take 
place. There must be a "resurrection," 
"creation," "birth," in order that there 
may be "Hfe," a "new creature," a "son." 
The old heart, spirit, and law must be re- 
placed by "a new heart," God's Spirit, and 
God's law. The idea that all men are sons 
of God, in possession of the Divine nature, 
and needing only an "inevitable construct- 
ive development," lowers regeneration to 



96 The New Birth Essential to Sonship 

the level of a purely natural evolutionary 
process (3 : 56). This is done professedly 
in the interest of a ''larger hope." But the 
"larger hope" is a delusion ; for while the 
God of evangelical Christianity has in- 
finite care for every individual, and His 
Son has gone to the Cross and still em- 
ploys the resources of the Almighty in 
order that every child of man who will 
may be translated from the power, king- 
dom, and family of Satan into the liberty, 
light, kingdom, and family of God, by 
means of a personal reconstruction as rad- 
ical as birth, we must not forget that the 
evolutionary process of "constructive de- 
velopment" cares nothing for the loss of 
individuals by the millions, while it moves 
on with cold heartlessness to- the perfection 
of the species. No, "the old man" does 
not partake of the Divine nature, as he 
would do, if a child, but "is corrupt," 
"earthly, sensual, devilish," and must "be 
renewed in the spirit, and put on the new 
man that after God hath been created in 



New Birth and Sonship Conditional 97 

righteousness and hohness of truth."^ 
Such is the teaching of the Bible and the 
fact of personal experience. Likeness of 
nature must exist between father and 
child. But man naturally is not charac- 
terized by such a likeness to God (pp. 54, 
153)5 ^nd can receive it only by the new- 
birth. Therefore those who have not been 
born again, born of God, are not by crea- 
tion or nature the children of God. The 
new birth is a necessity, because there is 
no other way of receiving the nature with- 
out which no filial relationship to the 
Divine is possible. 

This new birth is not inevitable, but 
conditional ; hence the filial nature and re- 
lationship are conditional, ^^ 

^ ' The new birth, 

and only those who are born sonship,Ts*^^ 

r /-. 1 1 Mj r r^ A conditional 

of God are children of God. 
If language has not lost its meaning, and 
if birth means anything, it means these 
two things : first, the bringing into exist- 
ence of a nature in the likeness of its par- 

* Eph. 4*. 22-24; Col. 3: 10; Jas. 3; 15. 



98 Children under 

entage ; and, secondly, constituting the re- 
lation of the person bearing that likeness 
as a child of his own parents. To be born, 
is to become somebody's child, with the 
likeness of those giving the birth; to be 
born of God, is to become a child of God 
in the likeness of the Father who "begat 
us/' The birth being conditioned on 'Re- 
pentance toward God, and faith toward 
our Lord Jesus Christ," the filial nature 
and relationship resulting therefrom are 
likewise conditioned, and only those who 
are born of God are children of God. 

Only children are under a parental gov- 
ernment. God is the Sovereign of a gen- 
^ , ^..,^ ^1*^1 moral sfovernment, in 

Only children ^ ' 

parental which all men are subjects, 

governmen ^hi^h is COUductcd OU the 

principle of justice by meting out rewards 
and punishments to individuals according 
to their deserts. In addition to this, there 
is a Divine parental government under 
the economy of grace, "whose aim is the 
correction and spiritual discipline of those 



Parental Government 99 

who/' by leaving off their sins through 
repentance and being born again and 
adopted by faith through the operation of 
the Holy Spirit, choose to avail them- 
selves of this gracious privilege of being 
members of the family of God. That 
there is such a government, no one vs^ho 
believes the Bible at all will be found to 
deny. "The mistake with regard to it/' 
says Bishop Merrill, ''is the habit of 'liber- 
alists' of applying its gracious principles 
to the moral government of God over the 
rebellious, and claiming for all men, upon 
the ground of natural relationship, the 
rights, immunities, and spiritual advan- 
tages which belong to the children in the 
household of faith. It is thus assumed 
that God's government is all paternal; 
that He deals with all sinners as a loving 
father deals with his erring children ; that 
He punishes them only for correction ; and 
that He never can disown them as chil- 
dren or disinherit them. This mistake we 
hesitate not to pronounce one of the most 

LefC. 



100 Others under Moral Government 

stupendous and ruinous that has ever been 
made in the interpretation of God's ad- 
ministration over men'' (19: 151, 152). 
But the whole claim is as baseless as its 
foundation principle^ — the universal Di- 
vine Fatherhood — is false. All men are 
not children of God. Hence all are not 
subjects of His parental government; for 
only children can be under a parental gov- 
ernment. 

All who are "not sons" are subjects of 
the moral, as distinct from the parental, 
others under government of God. Of 

God's moral - - . . 

government coursc, the doctrme m ques- 
tion requires the denial of such a govern- 
ment. Dr. Fairbairn is opposed to the 
idea which makes God "a juristic and ju- 
dicial person" and man "a civil subject" 
(7: 390, 428-431). He thinks that "the 
absolute sovereign without the father is a 
tyrant, a despot" (7: 435). This is not 
necessarily true, and in the case of God is 
an impossibility. It depends entirely upon 
the character, the nature of the sovereign. 



The Ideal Is Paternal 101 

Dr. Fairbairn makes the contrast between 
a selfish, sinful, imperfect sovereign, and a 
self-denying, pure, and wise father 
(7: 437). But this is an unfair compari- 
son, when God is the one whose attitude 
toward, and method of dealing with men 
we are seeking to determine. Even among 
sinful and imperfect men, history has re- 
corded more than once of the sovereign 
that he *^put aside every personal aim or 
ambition to devote himself to the welfare 
of those whom he ruled."^ If this could 
be said of Aelfred, how much more truth- 
fully must it be said of the infinitely holy, 
good, and perfect God. 

We join heartily with Dr. Fairbairn in 
emphasizing that ''the determinative ele- 
ment in His (Christ's) idea The ideal is 
of God is the paternal, and in patemai 
His idea of man the filial" (7 : 449), if the 
provision be added and kept in mind, that 
this IS true only as it relates to the ideal 
condition and relation, the end toward 

^A Short History of the English People, Green, p. 80. 



102 The Actual Is Paternal and Moral 

which all the resources of Heaven are be- 
ing used, but that it is not a universal con- 
dition and relation always and every- 
where existing. In this ideal condition 
which Christ has come to establish, and 
which can be realized only as we depart 
from iniquity and enter the Divine family 
through Christ the door, the "determina- 
tive conception is the Fatherhood, and so 
through it the Sovereignty must be read 
and interpreted. In all His regal acts God 
is paternal; in all His paternal ways re- 
gal'' (7: 444). But the ideal is not uni- 
versally the actual. 

The actual includes both a moral and a 
paternal government. Dr. Fairbairn 
The actual is thinks that "fathcrhood is 

paternal and - - . - 

moral the source and basis of sov- 

ereignty" (7: 434). This was probably 
true of the human "primitive or aborig- 
inal natural sovereign." But there is a 
natural sovereignty of God that does not 
find its basis in law, or power, or pater- 
nity, but in His relation as Creator — in 



The Actual Is Paternal and Moral 103 

the very nature of Deity. God is the nat- 
ural Sovereign of all that He has created, 
and He is this utterly independent of any 
idea of Fatherhood. Sovereignty is es- 
sentially and eternally inherent in God, 
not as Father, but as God, or else He is 
not God at all. His sovereignty, in its 
relation to His children, can and must be 
interpreted by His Fatherhood ; but not so 
in the case of those ^Vho will not be 
sons." The home is the analogy of God's 
paternal government, but it is not, as Dr. 
Bradford asserts, "the analogy of the uni- 
verse" (2: 199). This mistake has led 
both of these authors into many absurd 
inconsistencies, the only way out of which 
is an acknowledgment of the moral gov- 
ernment of God as entirely distinct from 
His paternal government. The great need 
of the sinner is the experience of the new 
birth and the blessing of adoption, which 
mean "a transference of the entire busi- 
ness of God's gracious dealing with us 
from the region of law and jurisprudence 



104 Liable to Punishment 

to the domain of the affections" (32: 68, 
69), into the inner circle of the Divine 
family where only "God dealeth as with 
sons." The Letter to the Hebrews makes 
it evident that only those who "endure 
chastening" are dealt with by God as His 
sons, and that all others are "bastards, and 
not sons" (Heb. 12: 7, 8), and can 
neither claim, expect, nor receive the 
treatment of sons. Only children can be 
under a paternal government and receive 
paternal treatment. 

Those who are not sons of God are sub- 
jects of His moral government, and liable 
,. , to judicial treatment. To 

Those "not •' 

liXe'to^^ avoid this unpleasant, but 

punishment o • j. i j i • i 

Scriptural and logical con- 
clusion, seems to be the real purpose of 
the doctrine that God is a universal Fa- 
ther. Says Dr. Fairbairn, "The paternal 
d^it^Siel'to^^ authority does not so much 
p^ishment punish as chastise" (7 : 437) . 
Dr. Bradford declares that "punishment 
is contrary to the true idea of the 



To Get Rid of Punishment lOS 

family'' (2: 247). We have noted 
that Maurice and Robertson made much 
use of the idea of the universal Fa- 
therhood to get rid of the notion of God's 
judicial dealings with mankind. A fa- 
vorite thought — and a true one — with the 
advocates of this doctrine is, that a 
sovereign punishes, but a father chastises. 
Now, when we remember that, if there are 
any to whom God is not a Father, but only 
a moral governor, such must be liable to 
punishment; and, further, that, if anyone 
of this class should act 30 as to place him- 
self finally beyond the possibility of be- 
coming a member of the family of God, 
he would, in the very nature of the case, 
be under the doom of eternal punishment, 
we can see readily that the real reason for 
the wild rush to maintain the doctrine of 
the universal Fatherhood, in spite of in- 
consistencies and the Word of God, is to 
rid the world of the notion of final pun- 
ishment for sin, leaving all subject only to 
chastisement or discipline. 



106 Punishment Scriptural 

Speaking of punishment, Dr. Bradford 
says, ^'A Scriptural word it surely is, but 
Punishment, a Scriptural idea it is not 

a Scriptural 

word and idea . . . Since there ... it 

suggests chastisement with a view to 
reformation" (2: 246). ''What is called 
punishment is always disciplinary and in- 
tended to restore" (2 : viii). This author 
assumes that all men are children of God, 
that "the eternal purpose of love is that all 
His children shall reach the fullness of the 
stature of Christ," and that "the Divine 
plan can be defeated by our folly no more 
than the falling of a meteor can disarrange 
the movement of the stellar universe," and 
thence concludes that "the Scripture 
which says, 'Vengeance is mine, I will re- 
pay, saith the Lord,' " does not mean that 
God will punish, but only that He will 
chastise (2: 186-190). He thinks that 
"the idea of punishment is essentially bar- 
baric" (2 : 246) ; but it is folly to assert 
this of righteous punishment; and that 
there is such a thing as righteous punish- 



Punishment Scriptural 107 

ment, will be seen in the next section. Dr. 
Bradford's view of human prerogative 
must be wonderfully enlarged, or else his 
view of the Divine prerogative is strange- 
ly limited ; for he says, * What would vio- 
late love in man would violate it in God" 
(2 : 250). This is so far from established 
truth, that many times what may be right 
and benevolent in God, would be criminal 
in man. Has the human father the right 
of life and death over his son? Or has 
not He who gave the life the right to take 
it away, without violating love? Dr. 
Bradford admits that punishment is a 
Scriptural word, and a very prominent 
one it certainly is. His claim that it must 
not be interpreted as meaning punishment, 
is based entirely upon the assumption that 
God sustains only the relation of a Father 
to the universe (2: 252). Since it has 
been shown that this doctrine is without 
foundation, this claim may be dismissed 
as groundless, and we may conclude that 
the Scriptures mean what they say and 



i08 Punishment Has Ends 

that punishment is not only a Scriptural 
word but a Scriptural idea as well. 

The trouble with the opposers of the 
idea of punishment seems to be, that their 

Punishmentnas ^^^^^" '^ ^^ bcfoggcd by CCr- 

of'DMnr*'^ tain worn-out theological 
goo ness tcnets about "countless myr- 

iads in torment exhibiting the glorious 
holiness of the Almighty in His hatred of 
sin" (2: 255), and a "merely retributive 
or retaliatory'' justice (7: 467), that they 
cannot grasp the rational Scriptural doc- 
trine of punishment. The idea of pun- 
ishment which has been before them is so 
"essentially barbaric and foreign to all 
that is known of the Deity" (2 : 246), that 
they revolt at the notion of punishment al- 
together, and conclude that it has no place 
in the Divine government. If they could 
see, not only that justice in the Divine 
government can never become "merely 
retributive and retaliatory," but also that 
there must be a retributive penalty which 
always has rectoral ends, and that such 



Worthy of Divine Goodness 109 

punishment not only has a righteous basis 
in the demerit of sin, but also is necessi- 
tated by its rectoral ends, and the Divine 
holiness and goodness, the fog would be 
lifted forever. There is a failure to set 
forth the design of penal suffering 
(2: 243), to grasp the rectoral ends of 
penalty (2: 253), to distinguish betvireen 
suffering and punishment in the case of 
the one punished, and the result on those 
who behold it (2: 255; 7: 438). In one 
sense, doubtless, the "methods and ends'' 
of God's government "are always correct- 
ive, redemptive" (7 : 438). By the warn- 
ing of the certainty of punishment. He 
would save us from sin; and by its in- 
flictions. He not only would punish the 
offenders justly, but also emphasize His 
warning and thus save those who are still 
within the reach of mercy. But all suffer- 
ing is not punishment, though God has 
"so ordered the universe that the tendency 
of suffering will be remedial" (2 : 255) in 
the case of the lovingly obedient who 



110 Punishment Necessary to These Ends 

really believe that "to them that love Gk)d 
all things work together for good/' or 
who will have the heart and good sense 
to be led by their sufferings to see that 
earth's sufferer needs a heavenly support 
and Comforter. What are the ends of 
punishment which make it worthy of the 
Divine character? The upholding of the 
integrity of God's moral government, 
both for the honor of the Ruler and the 
good of His subjects ; and the restraint of 
sin, the promotion of holiness, and the re- 
duction of misery to the minimum. The 
Divine perfections make these ends im- 
perative upon God's part, and in the moral 
state of humanity it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that punishment is necessary to their 
accomplishment (34: 71-73). 

It certainly is true that, for aught we 
know to the contrary, punishment is nec- 
Punisiiment cssary to these ends. Dr. 

necessary to 

these ends Bradford thinks that "his- 
tory , . . has demonstrated . . . the 
failure of punishment as a means of pre- 



Punishment Necessary to These Ends 111 

venting crime/' that "murder is nearly if 
not quite as frequent where the death 
penalty is rigorously executed as where it 
is unknown" (2: 246). We wonder how 
he would like to risk his own life and 
property where penalty is not legislated 
and punishments are not enforced against 
crime? His statements in this case, like 
the doctrines of the universal Fatherhood, 
Universalism, and the views of punish- 
ment that we have been considering, are 
based on a morbid sentimentalism and an 
ignoring of Scripture and facts. Over 
against his opinion, we place that of Dr. 
James M. Buckley, which he supports by 
facts : "To abolish capital punishment di- 
rectly or indirectly is one of the most 
effective means of promoting murder and 
other felonies, and also lynching. The 
awful increase of homicides and lynching 
in this country has been parallel with the 
spread of excessive sentimentality in deal- 
ing with crime. . . . Imprisonment for 
life offers a premium on additional mur- 



112 Punishment Necessary to These Ends 

der." The same would be true, if the re- 
formatory were substituted altogether for 
the prison. "Men have decoyed their vic- 
tims across the line from States where 
capital punishment existed into those 
where it did not, so that if convicted they 
would not be executed. ... In 1837 
the law of the State of Maine was so 
amended as to make capital punishment 
optional with the governor. He rarely 
awarded this extreme penalty ; as a conse- 
quence murders increased to such an ex- 
tent that in i860 Maine had become 
notorious for its murders; yet from 1834 
to 1864 not an execution took place. . . . 
Perham refused to enforce the law, and 
capital crime increased more rapidly than 
ever. Finally the Legislature passed a law 
restoring the death penalty. Wagner and 
Howell were hung for the murder of five 
or six victims, men, women, and children. 
During the entire year following the pas- 
sage of that act only one homicide oc- 
curred in Maine, and in that case the mur- 



Punishment Necessary to These Ends 113 

derer committed suicide immediately after 
committing his crime; yet under the in- 
fluence of an effeminate sentimentality, in 
the very face of these facts, in 1876 the 
Legislature aboHshed capital punishment, 
and in less than one year afterward eleven 
cruel and unnatural murders were com- 
mitted in the State. In the State of New 
York capital punishment was practically 
abolished in i860, but so great was the 
sudden increase of murders in this State, 
under that law, that in 1862 the Legisla- 
ture was compelled to restore capital pun- 
ishment."^ 

The fact is that the failure in restrain- 
ing crime is not so much in the principle 
of punishment, as in unwise legislation 
and faithlessness in the enforcement of 
law, and the morbid sentimentality which 
is partly to blame for both. These weak- 
nesses do not pertain to the Divine gov- 
ernment. More work of reform — which 
Dr. Bradford wisely commends (2: 246) 

* Editorial in The Christian Advocate, May 9, 190 1, p. 8. 



114 Punishment Necessary to These Ends 

— should be attempted, and God goes to 
the limit along this line in His govern- 
ment; but still, even on our author's own 
showing, there is a large per cent, of incor- 
rigibles for whom the prison and punish- 
ment are necessities. Discipline, intended 
to heal and restore, is the thing for those 
who will be reformed and transformed, 
who will come into the family and thus 
under God's parental government, where 
He can chasten and develop them as sons ; 
but beyond the parental, under the moral 
government of God, there is a punishment 
which is intended for the incorrigible and 
whose object is not to save the one who 
falls under its doom, but to deter others 
from taking his course, maintain the in- 
tegrity of the government, protect those 
who choose righteousness, and thus pro- 
mote holiness and reduce misery to the 
minimum. Who knows that these ends 
could be attained better by means of 
chastisement or discipline alone than by 
means of punishmqnt too ? 



Appeal to Scripture 115 

Who among mortals is possessed of the 
omniscience which alone could make him 
competent to declare such ^ . ^ 

^ Punishment 

knowledge, against the fact scrf±?efthe 

^1 ^ -1 i 1 • 1 • finafauthority 

that punishment plamly is re- 
vealed in Scripture, the final source of 
authority? On this subject Dr. Bradford 
discards the Bible, and substitutes as his 
authority "a mother's intuition" and "the 
voice of the heart," meaning by the latter, 
"the whole man asserting himself after 
seeing rather than speculating" (2: 233, 
234, 2^^, 244). But his book reads very 
much as if its author had speculated much 
more than he had seen. Until he gives us 
results of his "seeing" that compare fa- 
vorably in wisdom and their evidences of 
authority with Biblical revelation, com- 
mon and common-sense mortals will not 
subordinate prophets and apostles to the 
poets, nor trust to human sentimentality 
and humanly devised probabilities (2: 
233. 235, 239, 244, 263) for authority 
on these profoundest and most vital 



116 Reason Incompetent to 

problems and concerns of life and des- 
tiny, but will look to that Word which 
shall never pass away. Concerning those 
classes whose destiny so greatly perplexes 
Dr. Bradford, they will say in faith, "The 
Judge of all the earth will do right,'' and 
then they will proceed as rapidly as pos- 
sible to acquaint these and all others with 
the will of that Judge. They will not ap- 
peal from the wisdom of the Infinite to the 
sentimentalism of the finite, being assured 
that any government that should appeal 
the decisions of its criminal cases to such 
feelings would speedily come to an end, 
and that this must be as true of the Divine 
as of any human government. They will 
conclude with Dr. Miley : "Our reason is 
incompetent to pronounce against eternal 
punishment. ... A chief perplexity 
respects the use of penalty as a necessary 
means of government. If such, then, be 
the state of facts with us in all the forms 
of human government, we surely cannot 
determine what shall b^ the provisions 



Determine the Divioe Government 117 

and ministries of the Divine government, 
the sv^ay of v^hich is over all intelligences. 
The assumption of any such ability is 
most pretentious. And yet the man who 
finds the government of his little boy an 
utter perplexity can tell you just how God 
should govern the moral universe. With 
the narrow limitations of our own knowl- 
edge, the Scriptures are the only sufficient 
source of truth respecting the duration of 
future punishment" (37 : 469). When the 
author of the Letter to the Hebrews makes 
the distinction which he does between 
those who are sons and those who are not 
sons, and speaks of the sons only as being 
chastened, he implies that something else 
happens to those who are not sons. We 
are not left in doubt as to what that is. 
The Bible is clear and constant in its 
warnings of punishment, and we have 
seen before that it means what it says. 
Those who reject its voice are left only to 
baseless human conjecture that can result, 
to the thoughtful, only in trembling in 



118 Men Liable to Punishment 

anticipation of possible but unknown 
terrors. 

That men are liable to punishment, fol- 
lows as the inevitable conclusion from the 
Men liable to premises already established : 

punishment i ,i , 

namely, that some men are 
not the children of God; that only chil- 
dren are under a parental government and 
the law of chastisement and discipline; 
and that all others are subjects of God's 
moral government and under the law of 
rewards and punishments. 

Forgiveness and the new birth are 
grounded, not on repentance, but in the 
Forgiveness Atonement ; whereas the doc- 

wrth grounded trine of the universal Father- 
in the 
Atonement hood not Only leavcs no place 

for the Atonement, as we have seen 
(p. 89), but even actually leads its devo- 
tees to go farther than the "modem 
prophets" of the moral influence theory 
(2 : 206). If anyone who holds this doc- 
trine should deny this result in his own 
thought, he should be reminded that it is 



Forgiveness through Atonement 119 

only because he has not carried his doc- 
trine to its logical consequences, and that 
he has started down a decline, the end of 
which is a denial of any atonement in a 
Divine Christ. If he himself does not 
reach the bottom, his disciples of the next 
generation will. The members of this 
school fail to distinguish between the 
ground and the condition of forgiveness 
and the new birth. Repentance and faith 
are the proper and essential conditions, 
but repentance can never be a sufficient 
ground, or any ground at all, for forgive- 
ness and the new birth. Repentance is a 
sufficient ground of forgiveness in any 
family government, but not in the Divine 
moral government. Anyone needing to 
be convinced of this is referred to Dr. 
Miley (35 : 78-89). To rectify all the er- 
rors growing out of the teaching of the 
universal Fatherhood of God, would re- 
quire a rewriting of an entire system 
of theology. That is not the province 
of this book, but rather to point out the 



120 Christ's Atoning Death 

inevitable tendencies of this unscriptural 
doctrine. 

If the Bible makes anything clear, it is 
this, that sinful man can secure forgive- 
ness and the renewal of his nature only on 
the ground of Christ's atoning death ; that 
we are "justified freely by His grace 
through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propiti- 
ation, through faith in His blood, to show 
His righteousness because of the passing 
over of sins done aforetime, in the for- 
bearance of God ;" that "apart from shed- 
ding of blood there is no remission," that 
we are "redeemed with the precious blood, 
even the blood of Christ," "in whom we 
have our redemption through His blood, 
the forgiveness of our trespasses, accord- 
ing to the riches of His grace ;" that His 
blood was "poured out for many unto the 
remission of sins ;" that it is "the blood of 
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit 
offered Himself without blemish unto 
God," that cleanses the "conscience from 



Sonship through Christ 121 

dead works to serve the living God;" that 
only "the blood of Jesus His Son cleans- 
eth us from all sin/' and that our eternal 
doxology will therefore be, ''Unto Him 
that loveth us, and loosed us from our 
sins by His Blood/'^ These passages, in 
harmony with the whole of revelation, 
teach that forgiveness and regeneration 
or the new birth, are grounded only in 
Christ's atoning sacrifice. 

But forgiveness and the new birth are 
the conditions, without which there can be 
no filial nature and no filial e. *,. 

Sonship not by 

relationship to God (pp. 93- gjwh^ 
98). Therefore sonship is 
not by nature, but by grace, not from crea- 
tion, but from the new creation, not in- 
herited from Adam, who forfeited his son- 
ship (pp. 153-155) and received it back 
only as a gift of grace which he could not 
transmit, but received through Christ, 
who freely gives to those whoi are "aliens,'* 
"foreigners," and "not sons," the privi- 

iRom. 3: 24, 25; Heb. 9: 22; i Pet. i: 18, 19; Eph. i: 7; 
Matt. 26: 28; Heb. 9: 14; i Jno. 1:7; Rev. i: 5. 



122 Universalism Falls 

lege, power, and "right to become children 
of God/' Hence the doctrine of the uni- 
versal Divine Fatherhood is 

Universalism 

^^"^ false, and the whole system 

of Universalism, which is builded upon it, 
is therefore without foundation, and falls 
of its own weight. Hereby also it is seen 
plainly that this doctrine, which is the 
logical basis, the major premise of that 
gigantic delusion, so far from bringing 
any "larger hope" to humanity, is truly 

(d) A Most Cruel Deception 

The all-important question is not con- 
cerning what we would like to believe, nor 
Not **broad. what we wish could be true, 

ness," but truth - - . ^ 

is essential but rather, what IS true? 
The essential thing for us, in the face of 
such tremendous questions, is not that we 
shall be "broad," but that we shall be 
right and true. It is folly to set up "our 
instincts," "the voice of the heart," and 
our baseless "probabilities" against God's 
revealed Word. The time may come 



Solves No Problems 123 

when we shall be able to see that He 
knows and does what is best. Though we 
cannot understand all the details now, we 
can understand enough to enable us to 
see that what is revealed is at least in har- 
mony with the highest reason. We can, 
therefore, afford not to pretend to be wise 
above what is written. 

The doctrine in question solves no prob- 
lems. Those which we have found it at- 
tempting to solve, it leaves in solves no 
a state of jumbled inconsis- ^^^ ^^^ 
tencies with Scripture and common sense. 
It does no better in its attempt to relieve 
the difficulty of placing a limit upon God's 
power, and of reconciling free will with 
the impossibility of Divine defeat. Dr. 
Bradford thinks that "to assert positively 
that any will be able to defeat His redemp- 
tive purpose is to affirm that God's power 
is limited" (2: 253). But to "admit the 
possibility," though he "doubts the proba- 
bility," is to allow the same limitation 
(2: 267). If he would discard his doc- 



124 Solves No Problems 

trine of the universal Fatherhood and his 
consequent Universalism, and hold to the 
Scriptural idea of God's "redemptive pur- 
pose/' not that all men inevitably shall be 
saved because they are sons, but that all 
who receive Christ shall have the right to 
become sons and therefore heirs of salva- 
tion, his difficulty about limiting God's 
power would vanish. 

On the ground that God is a universal 
Father, Dr. Fairbairn logically concludes 
that He will never cease His efforts at 
salvation "till the evil ceases; and if evil 
never ceases, then the conflict must go on 
forever/^ otherwise "the victory [would] 
remain with the evil'* (7: 463-468). But 
if the conflict was eternally unsuccessful, 
and the evil had not ceased, "who would 
be the victor — God or sin'^ (7: 466)? 
And so his interpreting doctrine leaves 
him impaled on the horns of this dilemma : 
he must adopt the conclusion of Univer- 
salism, which he does not do (7: 468), or 
allow that sin is the victor, the very result 



To Infatuation Cruel and Deceptive 125 

which he seeks to avoid. This is the very- 
condition of a father with an incorrigible 
son ; but it is not the condition of a ruler 
with an incorrigible, but convicted and 
punished subject. God is the victorious 
Sovereign of His universe, whether that 
sovereignty is manifested in granting son- 
ship and its consequent inheritance to 
those who accept His terms, or in shutting 
the incorrigible out from the presence of 
God and all holy men and angels forever. 
This doctrine leads the sinner with all 
reason to say : "God is the Father of all 
men, I am therefore His son. to infatuation 

cruel and 

And if His son, then a par- (deceptive 
taker of His nature, in need of no new 
birth either to create in me the Divine 
nature or to make me a child. Because I 
am a son, I belong to the Divine family, 
and am under God's parental care. He 
will therefore not punish, but only chasten 
and discipline me, in order to lead me to 
repentance and perfect me as His child. 
Sometime this result will be accomplished ; 



126 A Doctrine None Can Afford to Hold 

for I am a son of God, and, if a son, then 
an heir of God/' Now, if the first state- 
ment be true — that God is the Father of 
all men — "then,'' says Bishop Merrill, 
*'this carnal reasoning is not only safe, 
but sound and truly rational. But if there 
be truth in God's Word ; if there was any 
occasion for the redeeming work which 
the Messiah undertook, and any necessity 
for the spiritual birth of the soul unto 
newness of life in Christ, — then all this 
leaning upon the paternal government by 
unregenerate sinners is an infatuation as 
cruel as it is deceptive. It is the master- 
piece of Satan" (19: 153). 

A^ doctrine which has no foundation in 
Scripture, which is fundamental in sys- 
A doctrine tems that proclaim "another 

noDe can afford , „ , . - . ^ j 

to hold gospel, which is grounded 

in no necessity of nature or reason or 
grace, that finds no consistent place in any 
evangelical system of truth, and involves 
the most irrational, not to say blasphe- 
mous, absurdities, and above all, which. 



Sonship Is Alienable 127 

with inevitable logic, as we have just seen, 
leads to such an eternally fatal infatuation 
— such a doctrine none, who bears the in- 
terests of souls upon his heart, can afford 
to believe, much less to teach. 

D.— Sonship Is Alienable 
The really final test of any doctrine is 
the Scriptural. Reserving for the present 
our consideration of the appeal to that 
court, but anticipating the decision, we 
have seen that this decision is in harmony 
with the highest reason. But the objec- 
tion is made that the whole argument, 
while otherwise leading to a satisfactory 
conclusion and acceptable doctrine, in- 
volves an impossibility, and thereby is 
vitiated. 

Milton, as already noted, puts these 
words into the mouth of Satan : 

*• The son of God I also am, or was ; 
And if I was, I am ; relation stands." 

All succeeding advocates of the universal 
Fatherhood necessarily have held to this 



128 The Determining Question 

principle: "Once a son, always a son/' 
The determin- O^^ advocatc of the limited 
mg question ^^^ conditional Fatherhood 

builds his argument on the same basis — 
Dr. Candlish in his Cunningham lectures. 
His Calvinistic doctrine of final perse- 
verance led him to deny sonship to Adam 
before the Fall, and to teach that "the pe- 
culiar benefit of sonship" is this, that "it 
puts an end conclusively to probation, in 
every sense, and in every form" (32 : 113, 
254). This was a fatal weakness in his 
lectures, which exposed him to the easy 
assault of his opponent, Dr. Crawford, 
who, though of the same school, yet in 
utter disregard of consistency with his 
own fundamental doctrines, utterly de- 
molished the arguments of Dr. Candlish, 
on the original relationship of Adam 
(18: 36-48). Here, then, is the vital 
question: If I was once a son of God, 
must I always be His son ? Does this re- 
lationship necessarily stand? Can the 
relation of sonship in the Divine family, 



This Sonship Not Physical 129 

once formed, be forfeited? Has this re- 
lationship in any case ever been forfeited ? 
That the filial relationship in the Divine 
family can be forfeited, is seen from its 
nature. The prodigal son of Not a natural 

or physical 

the parable continued to be a relationship 
son even during his unfilial life in the far 
country, because his sonship was an inde- 
structible physical relationship; it origi- 
nated in a physical procreation and birth. 
His filial relations might be, and were, in- 
terrupted by his character and conduct; 
but nothing could make it possible that he 
should forfeit his filial relationship. But 
sonship in the Divine family is not a par- 
allel case. There is nothing of the phys- 
ical or natural about it. It does not pro- 
ceed from any physical creation or 
procreation or generation. The term, 
"natural sonship," used by Dr. Clarke, is 
therefore without any proper significance. 
The nonforfeitable character of natural 
physical human sonship has no bearing 
upon the question before us. 



130 A Moral and Spiritual Relationship 

Dr. Fairbairn acknowledges "The filial 
is an ethical even more than a physical re- 
A moral and lation" (7: 474). In the 
relationship preceding paragraph he had 
said: "In fact and through sin God and 
man are ethical opposites." But, if "the 
filial is an ethical relation," and if "God 
and man are ethical opposites," how can 
God be the universal Father of mankind 
and every man God's son, when, accord- 
ing to this author's own definition, which 
is certainly correct, "to be a son is to be 
the image of the father, no mere instru- 
ment of his will, but a repetition ol him- 
self, constituted after him in nature and 
faculty" (7: 456, 457)? Is the Devil 
such an "image" and "repetition'* of God 
that he could say truthfully what Milton 
attributes to him? Is the unregenerate 
sinner, whose "affinity and relation" to 
God, even Dr. Fairbairn is constrained to 
allow are only ''ideal, as conceived and 
purposed of God — not actual, as mani- 
fested in man and realized in history'* 



A Moral and Spiritual Relationship 131 

(7: 474), such an ^^image" and "repeti- 
tion" of Deity, that he must be considered 
a son? If sonship in the Divine family is 
in any sense "a physical relation," which 
Dr. Fairbairn allows — for he holds to the 
idea of a universal Fatherhood — then 
both of the foregoing hypotheses must be 
admitted as facts, and the position that 
man's "affinity and relation" to God are 
only "ideal, not actual," must be aban- 
doned; for if a man is a son, he is an 
"actual" son, though he be far from an 
"ideal" son. But if sonship is not natural 
or physical, as we have seen is the case, 
but only a moral and spiritual relation- 
ship, then the idea of the universal Father- 
hood vanishes as a vain imagination, then 
too we are rid of the inconsistency be- 
tween the fact of sonship and Dr. Fair- 
baim's correct definition of what it means 
"to be a son," and of the absurd, but 
otherwise true foregoing hypotheses. 

It would seem to be unnecessary to ar- 
gue that this relationship between God 



132 A Moral and Spiritual Relationship 

and man is purely moral and spiritual and 
not in any sense natural or physical. But 
if such were the case, it also would be un- 
necessary to oppose the doctrine of the 
universal Fatherhood ; for this rests pure- 
ly on a physical basis, except in the 
thought of those who deny man's native 
depravity. A few moments of earnest at- 
tention to this one phase of the problem, 
however, ought to be sufficient to enable 
anyone to see that there is no ground for a 
physical relationship between God and 
man. A rereading of pages 51-55 will as- 
sist in this direction. There is no analogy 
that can be used perfectly to illustrate the 
case before us. That of the relation of 
the Eternal Son to the Father will not 
quite do, and yet that is the most perfect 
type of our filial relation to God. It is in 
no sense a physical, but only a spiritual, 
relationship. The closest earthly relation- 
ship is the conjugal. ''The two shall be- 
come one flesh'' (Matt. 19: 5). This last 
word does not rnake inconsistent the state- 



A Relationship Conditioned 133 

ment that this relationship is purely spir- 
itual. But, though this is the most sacred 
and intimate of all earthly relations, yet 
conditions may arise which morally and 
legally will abrogate the relation utterly 
and cause those who were one to become 
two, as if they never had been united by 
the closest affinity. Now, while the rela- 
tion of sonship is something entirely dif- 
ferent, still the analogy of a true conjugal 
spiritual union may help some minds at 
least to grasp this fact that our filial rela- 
tion to the Divine is not physical but 
spiritual and subject to conditions which 
may lead to its nullification. 

Believers in the tmiversal Fatherhood 
always confuse the condition of man 
growing out of his original a relationship 

based on God's 

creation with the present con- grace and 

^ conditioned by 

dition of him who does not «ian's freedom 

choose to accept the proffered blessing and 
relationship. They ignore the fact that 
the moral and spiritual element of man's 
nature, which constituted his chief like- 



134 Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 

ness to the Divine, and which was the 
basis without which the fiHal relation and 
fellowship could not exist, has been 
changed so fundamentally by sin, that 
now the element of atoning grace must be 
taken into account as the only sufficient 
basis of the paternal and filial relation be- 
tween God and man, as we have seen 
(pp. 59-65). But if sonship is grounded 
in the Atonement, it is a gift of grace and 
not an inevitable result of nature, involves 
a renewed nature which can be produced 
only by the new birth, and if the new birth 
can be received only by a free choice of re- 
pentance and faith, then sonship is both 
based on God's grace and conditioned by 
man's freedom, and the crowning glory 
of man's free will is, that he is privileged 
to choose his own spiritual affiliation. 

What follows ? Because man's filial re- 
lationship to God is in no sense physical. 
Such relation- but purely moral and spir- 

ship may be 

forfeited itual, based on God's grace 

and conditioned by man's free choice, 



Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 135 

therefore it may be forfeited; for that 
which is of grace may cease when the con- 
ditions of receiving or retaining gracious 
gifts are not complied with. If our initial 
entrance into the kingdom and family of 
God at our natural birth is not the result 
of that physical birth, but of an uncondi- 
tional spiritual operation — and if this is 
not true, then children are made sons and 
heirs of salvation on some other ground 
than Christ's Atonement — that relation- 
ship may cease, when, at the age of ac- 
countability, the now responsible child 
chooses to terminate it. And whatever 
may be anyone's views of the relation of 
children to the Divine family, if, as has 
been demonstrated abundantly, the son- 
ship of the adult is a gracious relationship 
bestowed on conditions, then, when the 
conditions are not complied with, the son- 
ship ceases. Even Wendt seems to ac- 
knowledge this. "Man becomes a child of 
God," he says, "by showing conduct cor- 
responding to the character and will of 



136 Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 

God. . . . Then the idea is warranted, 
that one can, by his own responsible con- 
duct, make himself the child of a certain 
father, or can lose a certain filial relation- 
ship" (14: 116, 117). Since he' had just 
been contrasting "a child of the Devil" 
with children of God, this would seem to 
be a fair interpretation of his words, 
though his views on this subject seem 
to depend entirely upon the passage of 
Scripture that he happens to be con- 
sidering. 

But, says Dr. Fairbairn, "He (God) 
will not dissolve the relations through 
which alone He can work the beatitude 
He has willed; were He to do so. He 
would cancel the very end for which He 
has made the world" (7: 421). But the 
individual, by sin, may dissolve those re- 
lations and cancel that end for himself. 
Our author adds : "The creative will as a 
will of moral good is eternal and univer- 
sal." But all men will not allow its de- 
signed effects in themselves to be "eternal 



Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 137 

and universal.'^ Sin, as he confesses, does 
indeed cause both man and God to miss 
his mark; for sin "is, as it were, the 
creature attempting to deny to the Creator 
the beatitude he was created expressly to 
give. . . . And it is in its nature so ma- 
lignant that it may forever divide God 
from the spirits He created that He 
might enjoy their society forever" (7: 
455). And if sin can thus cause man 
to lose his Divine inheritance, it must 
first cause a loss of his sonship; for 
sonship as long as it exists guarantees 
the inheritance — "if a son, then an heir 
through God.'' 

In the summary of the principle upon 
which his discussions have proceeded. Dr. 
Fairbairn makes certain statements which 
should be considered in this connection 
(7: 445, 446). "Fatherhood," he says, 
"cannot here be stated in the terms of 
physical creation or procreation, . . . 
but only in the terms of ethical motive, re- 
lation, and end." These paternal and 



138 Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 

filial relations are "spiritual and per- 
sonal." This being true, "the aboriginal 
relation of man and God" is not, as he as- 
serts, necessarily "the universal and per- 
manent" — indeed, it cannot so continue 
when the spiritual character of man 
ceases to be of the character of the Father, 
when man, in the exercise of his free will, 
chooses to nullify "the ethical relation and 
end" which God desires to have realized. 
"Man is God's son . . . because of the 
God and the ends of the God whose 
creature he is." But also because of what 
man is as a free moral agent, when that 
freedom is used to abrogate his Divine re- 
lationship, his sonship ceases. It is true 
that where love "creates a fellow with 
whom it can have fellowship, the relation 
of the created is filial." But it is also true, 
in the case of a purely gracious and moral 
and spiritual filial relationship, that where 
sin breaks that fellowship and removes the 
likeness which must exist between parent 
and child, the filial relationship ceases. 



Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 139 

and the creature becomes an enemy, an 
alien, a traitor. "To speak of the 'adop- 
tion' of a creature who is in no respect a 
son, is to use a term which is here without 
the saving virtue of sense. The Sonship 
must be real to start with, if adoption is 
ever to be real." It strikes us rather that 
to speak of the "adoption" of a creature 
who is in reality already a son, "is to use 
a term which is here without the saving 
virtue of sense," even when the author 
adds that he means "adoption out of the 
sonship of nature into the Sonship of 
grace" (7 : 477) ; for no father adopts his 
own child, nor does it require a second 
birth for one who is already a son to be- 
come a son. If one is a son by nature, he 
has a perfect title to sonship, without ask- 
ing any adoptive favors of grace. The 
trouble seems to be that in all his effort to 
establish the universal Fatherhood of God 
and sonship of man, Dr. Fairbairn ignores 
the relation of the new birth to the filial 
relationship and speaks only of adoption 



140 Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 

as a "legal fiction/' without reference to 
its deeper Scriptural significance in the 
new birth. But the fact remains that birth 
always has had a very vital connection 
with the bringing into existence of a 
child; and in the spiritual realm the con- 
nection is no less vital — there is no filial 
relationship of man to God, except man 
shall be born of God. This is the element 
which Dr. Fairbairn needs, to make the 
sonship and the adoption real, and not a 
universal physical sonship, a conception 
which, on its face, is an absurdity in the 
spiritual realm. 

It may help some to understand the fact 
that in our probationary state this rela- 
tionship is forfeitable, by noting the only 
possible alternatives to the idea of a for- 
feitable spiritual sonship. First, Dr. R. S. 
Candlish's idea that no one is ever a son 
till the experience of the new birth and 
adoption, and that this sonship, once en- 
tered into, is nonforfeitable on the prin- 
ciple of the Calvinistic doctrine of final 



Such Relationship May Be Forfeited 141 

perseverance. The proof of man's orig- 
inal sonship or the disproof of this Cal- 
vinistic dogma, is the disproof of this 
alternative. Secondly, a natural universal 
sonship which is the guarantee of univer- 
sal salvation. The disproof of Univer- 
salism is the disproof of this alternative. 
Thirdly, Dr. Crawford's notion of a 
nominal universal sonship, which amounts 
to nothing more than the relation of the 
creature to the Creator. But such a son- 
ship as this, which bears no vital relation 
to salvation, is only a misapplication of 
the term, and is without foundation in 
Scripture or the nature of things, and 
hence this alternative is disposed of. This 
leaves room only for the Scriptural and 
rational doctrine of a nonphysical, purely 
moral and spiritual sonship, based on 
God's grace, not on nature, and condi- 
tioned by man's freedom, which, there- 
fore, can be forfeited, and, in fact, has 
been forfeited. 

Even The Theology of an Evolutionist, 



142 Filial Likeness of Nature Forfeited 

though maintaining the universal Father- 
Fiiiai likeness hood in utter inconsistency 

of nature r • 

forfeited with this coufcssion, de- 

clares: "We are made in God's image, 
and have despoiled ourselves of that 
image" (i6: 75). But that image is es- 
sential to sonship. ''That which is begot- 
ten must have the nature of that of which 
it is begotten" (26: 216). 'Identity of 
nature between parent and child is essen- 
tial to the idea of fatherhood" (2: 59). 
Now, when this likeness of nature is not 
something physical and is not dependent 
upon anything physical, but pertains only 
to the moral and spiritual character of the 
soul or spirit, if we "despoil ourselves of 
that image," we despoil ourselves of son- 
ship, which requires "identity of nature 
between parent and child." Says Mr. 
Nye, "He has fashioned us after His own 
heart" (4: 19). But only a Universalist 
and his kind would think of saying that 
this applies to us as we have made our- 
selves by the choice of sin. Those bear no 



Filial Likeness of Nature Forfeited 143 

filial resemblance to God, of whom He 
says, "The heart is deceitful above all 
things, and it is exceedingly corrupt'' 
(Jer. 17: 9) ; "We are all become as one 
that is unclean, and all our righteous- 
nesses are as a polluted garment'' (Is. 
64: 6) ; "O full of all guile and all vil- 
lainy, thou son of the Devil, thou enemy 
of all righteousness" (Acts 13: 10). Sin 
is indeed a great "offense against the pa- 
ternal love, ... for it defeats all the 
motives and intentions of the eternal 
goodness" (7: 463). But what is one of 
the chief of those "intentions"? This: 
that we shall have "the right to become 
children of God," "that we might receive 
the adoption of sons." And sin defeats 
that intention, abrogating the relation of 
sonship on the part of the sinner, though, 
of course, "it can annihilate neither the 
Fatherhood nor the Sovereignty;" for 
God is always Sovereign, and the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ and of all who 
obey Him. The reason that Dr. Fair- 



144 Filial Likeness of Nature Forfeited 

bairn assigns for sin's inability to anni- 
hilate the Fatherhood and Sovereignty is, 
that ^'it cannot annul either the character 
or the acts through which they are." He 
refers to the character and acts of God. 
But the one thing and the very thing that 
sin does, is this, that it does annul the 
character in man which is essential in or- 
der to constitute him a son of God, and 
thereby, while it cannot annul "the acts,'' 
it does nullify the results of those acts 
through which God has become the Fa- 
ther of that particular man; and conse- 
quently, while God is forever the Father, 
He is not the Father of that man who does 
not bear His image and character. This 
is in harmony with Biblical teaching and 
with the doctrine of the Apostles as ex- 
pressed by Dr. McClintock. The Apostles, 
he says, seem to have before them this 
single view, "that our sins had deprived 
us of our sonship" (21 : 78). 

If the principle of the whole argument 
up to this point is true — that when God 



Examples of Forfeited Sonship 145 

creates moral intelligences, human or an- 
gelic, He begets in them a Examples of 

forfeited 

moral and spiritual likeness sonsmp 
to Himself which constitutes them children 
in His family, and that, by sin, these free 
personalities can despoil themselves of 
that likeness and hence of their sonship — 
then the Israelites who "dealt corruptly 
with Him,^' and of whom it is added, 
"they are not His children" (Deut. 32: 
S), and the "angels that kept not their 
own principality" (Jude 6), which must 
have been a position of sonship as well as 
lordship, are examples of forfeited filial 
relationship. And what we shall find to 
be a fact of Scripture, is supported by the 
common experience of mankind, and es- 
pecially of the most spiritual; namely, 
that the man with a deep sense of his sins 
does not think of addressing God as Fa- 
ther, but cries, "God, be merciful to me a 
sinner," and only changes his form of ad- 
dress after he has been born again into 
the family of God, and received the Spirit 



146 Sonship Normal 

of adoption as the distinguishing and wit- 
nessing fact of sonship. 

We agree most heartily with Dr. 
Clarke in affirming, "The filial life, such 
Fatherhood and as Christ tells of, is the only 

sonship the . ^.^ r .. . 

normal relation normal life of man ( I : 

between God ^ 

and man j^^). And if it were pos- 

sible that the desires and intentions of 
Divine love were the only elements to be 
considered and could determine man's 
character, life, and relationship, not only 
would Fatherhood and sonship express 
the normal relation between God and man, 
but the normal life of sonship would be 
the actual and universal life of all men, 
and not simply the "ideal as conceived and 
purposed of God.^^ But unfortunately the 
ideal and normal are not always the 
actual. 

Says Dr. Fairbairn, "God is by nature 
Father, and man is by nature son ; and of 
Sin causes an thesc two the normal relation 

abnormal 

relationship is one of communion or fel- 
lowship. But the normal is not the actual ; 



Sin Causes an Abnormal Relationship 147 

its realization is hindered by sin'' (7: 
452). If it had not been for his false 
hypothesis of the universal Fatherhood, 
which has marred his great book so 
seriously, instead of the foregoing state- 
ment, he doubtless would have made this 
true declaration : The normal relation of 
God to man is that of fatherhood, and of 
man to God is that of sonship. But the 
normal is not universally the actual; its 
universal realization is hindered by sin. 



PART II 

THE TEACHING OF 
SCRIPTURE 



PART n 

THE TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE 



Many references already have been 
made to the Holy Scriptures, but only 
such as were necessarily incident to a 
proper consideration of the various theo- 
ries and dangerous tendencies of the view 
that God is a universal Father. It re- 
mains for us to examine the teaching of 
the Bible as a whole, in order to lay a sure 
foundation upon which to construct the 
true doctrine of the Fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man. Emphasis 
needs to be laid upon the importance of 
such a view of the whole Book in any at- 
tempt to determine the real teaching of 
the Word. Single passages, wrested from 
their context, and considered without re- 



152 Man Created in the Image of God 

gard to the general tenor of the Scrip- 
tures, may be made to teach almost any 
vagary of a wild imagination. But such 
methods ought to find no toleration from 
a sincere searcher after truth. It shall 
be our purpose to make a sufficiently 
thorough investigation of every part of 
the Holy Scriptures relevant to our theme, 
to determine what is the teaching, first of 
the Old Testament, second of the words 
of Jesus, and thirdly of the Apostolic 
writings, touching the subject of the Fa- 
therhood of God, especially in answer to 
the question at issue, whether that Father- 
hood is natural and universal, or moral 
and spiritual and therefore limited. 

A. — The Old Testament 

Starting where we first find him, we 
learn that man was created in the image 
Man created in and after the likeness of God 

the image of .^ ^. _^ . . 

God (Gen. i: 26). This image 

consisted essentially in man's personality, 
and in so far was not forfeitable and wa3 



His Filial Nature Lost by Sin 153 

not lost by sin. But there may be, and in 
fact are, two kinds of persons — holy and 
unholy — and these are distinct in nature. 
A pure moral personality is a partaker of 
the Divine nature, in virtue of a spiritual 
endowment, a spiritual begetting. This 
was man's original condition, and this it 
was which constituted him a child of God. 
But this pure and Divine-like character of 
his personality was forfeit- „. ^,. , ^ 

^ ^ His filial nature 

able, and was lost in the Fall. io«t;bysin 
This view is in harmony with Genesis 
9: 6 (compare Jas. 3: 9), which makes 
the fact of man's personal dignity and 
possibiHties — the fact that he was made in 
the image of God — the ground of a prohi- 
bition against murder; and with Colos- 
sians 3: 10 and Ephesians 4: 23, 24, 
which show that ''the new man" is a res- 
toration of a Divine image of "righteous- 
ness and holiness of truth" which had 
been lost, and which could be restored 
only by renewal in the image of the 
Creator. 



154 His Filial Nature Lost by Sin 

This Scriptural analysis of the nature 
of the image and likeness in which man 
was created, disposes of the claim of Dr. 
Adams, that, "whatever may have been the 
nature of this image and likeness of God, 
it is clear that it was not lost in the sin of 
our progenitor," and his further claim 
that Genesis 9 : 6 is "an impregnable text" 
"fatal to all that false view" which dis- 
putes the doctrine of the universal Fa- 
therhood of God (3 : 8, 9). "The nature 
of this image" makes a vast difference. 
Originally characterized by the fullness of 
the Divine image not only in the personal, 
but also in the moral elements of that 
image, Adam was constituted a "son of 
God" (Luke 3 : 38). But when the moral 
element of that image, which is essential 
to sonship in the Divine family,^ was lost, 
the "relation of sonship was lost," says 
Bishop Merrill (19: 143), "and was 
never transmitted by natural generation 
to any of his offspring, and cannot now 

1 See, in addition to the foregoing analysis, pages 127-147 
and 239-243. 



His Filial Nature Lost by Sin 155 

be pleaded as the ground of heirship;" for 
of the children of Adam it is said, that he 
begat them "in his own likeness, after his 
image" (Gen. 5:3), and that image was 
no longer of a sufficient likeness to God 
to constitute the son of Adam a son of 
God. Henceforth man must look back, 
not to the original creation, nor to his 
own individual physical birth, as the 
groimd of his actual or possible Divine 
filiation, but forward rather to some pro- 
vision of grace intimated in the prophecy 
that the seed of the woman should bruise 
the serpent's head (Gen. 3 : 15). 

If it should be objected that this state- 
ment is based on the doctrine of the Fall, 
which doctrine has been shown to be 
founded on a myth and not on reliable 
history, and that, therefore, the argument 
falls to the ground, and is also inconsist- 
ent with evolution ; it might be answered, 
first, that with such an objector there is a 
necessity for a reexamination of the ques- 
tion of the historical authority of Genesis 



1S6 Two Classes of Men Since the Fall 

and the doctrine of the Bible concerning 
the Fall of man; secondly, that, on the 
ground of naturalistic or atheistic evolu- 
tion, there is no basis for any relationship 
of man to God that does not inhere 
equally in any of man's animal progeni- 
tors; thirdly y that, even on the basis of 
theistic evolution and a denial of the Fall, 
there is no basis for any filial relation of 
man to God, until, in the process of his in- 
dividual development, man has received 
that moral and spiritual endowment which 
makes him a partaker of the Divine 
nature, and which can never result from 
anything other than a production from 
God of the moral, spiritual, and Divine 
life in man. 

As a result of the first apostasy we find 
that a change has taken place in man's re- 
Two classes of lationship tO' God, that man- 
men since the , . . . ^ . . 
Fall kind IS now divided into two 

classes, called in Genesis 3:15 the seed of 
the serpent and the seed of the woman; 
and in Genesis 6 : 2 we find these further 



Two Classes of Men Since the Fall 157 

characterized as ''the daughters of men'' 
and "the sons of God/' In the first pas- 
sage, the seed of the serpent must refer to 
those members of the human family who 
follow the ways and partake of the nature 
of the serpent as his children, and the seed 
of the woman are those who follow her in 
repentance and regeneration, being born 
again from above, and especially to Jesus 
Christ who is preeminently "the seed" 
(Gal. 3 : i6, 19 ; 4 : 4) . In the second pas- 
sage, "the sons of God" are those who, by 
their choice of God as their Father, have 
had restored to them the forfeited moral 
image lost by sin, and "the daughters of 
men" are those who have made no such 
choice and in consequence are, as Dr. Mur- 
phy says, "destitute of the loftier quali- 
ties of like-mindedness with God." "The 
evil here described," he adds, "is that of 
promiscuous intermarriage, without re- 
gard to spiritual character."^ From now 
on the inspired record deals with two dis- 

* Murphy, Commentary on Genesis, in loco, pp. 177. 178. 



158 A National Relationship 

tinct classes of men, "the seed of the ser- 
pent" and "the sons of God/' 

Upon the organization of the Hebrew 
nation, the prevailing notion of the Old 
^^ „ ^ Testament concerninsr the 

The Hebrews ^ 

cLfed^cwrdren Fatherhood of God comes 
into view for the first time: 
namely, that it is a special relation exist- 
ing between God and His people Israel. 
Jehovah says unto Pharaoh: "Israel is 
my son, my firstborn. Let my son go, 
that he may serve me; and thou hast re- 
fused to let him go; behold, I will slay thy 
son, thy firstborn" (Ex. 4: 22, 23). All 
the passages in Deuteronomy,^ Isaiah,^ 
Jeremiah,^ and Malachi^ produced in sup- 
port of the doctrine of the universal 
Fatherhood, refer only to the fatherly 
relation of God to Israel as a nation, and 
not even to individual Israelites, to say 
nothing of all the rest of mankind. Moses 
(as also the others) is speaking only of 

1 Deut. 14; I, 2; 32: 6, 10, IS, 18-20. 

2 Is. i: 2; 63: 16; 64; 8. 

* Jer. 3; 4, 19; 31: I, 9, 20. 

* Mai. i; 6; 2: 9, 10. 



The Prevailing Old Testament Idea 159 

and to Israel, and what he says of God as 
a Father having bought, made, and es- 
tablished them, refers, not to any natural 
relationship growing out of creation, but 
only to the fact that God has delivered, 
made, and established them as a nation. 
And, indeed, this very thirty-second chap- 
ter from Deuteronomy furnishes a pos- 
itive argument against the idea of a 
universal Divine Fatherhood, when it in- 
timates in verse 5 that sonship depends 
upon character: "They have dealt cor- 
ruptly with him, they are not his children, 
it is their blemish; they are a perverse 
and crooked generation." And verse 
21 seems to teach that sin may cause 
them to forfeit their filial relationship 
and that God may adopt other chil- 
dren in their stead. Jeremiah (31:9) 
gives the key to the interpretation of 
the prevailing Old Testament idea touch- 
ing the Fatherhood of God: 'T am a 
Father to Israel.'' 

The principal passage in the Old Testa- 



160 Malachi 2: 10 

ment, upon which the advocates of the 
doctrine in question rest their 

Malachi 2: 10 

claim, is Malachi 2 : 10. 
"Have we not all one Father? hath not 
one God created us?'' Of this text, Dr. 
Adams, the Universalist, says : "It shows 
beyond question that in the mind of this 
prophet the Fatherhood of God was coex- 
tensive with His creatorship over souls" 
(3: 10, 11). And, on the other hand. 
Professor James S. Candlish says (10: 
217^) : "Here plainly the Fatherhood is 
not conceived as extending to all men." 
Which is right? Evidently the latter. 
Why ? The prophet is a Jew, possessed of 
the prevailing Old Testament idea of the 
Fatherhood as a national rather than an 
individual relation, and he is speaking 
only of and to Jews. He makes this rela- 
tionship of the Jewish nation to God the 
basis of his rebuke to them for marrying 
heathen wives : "Judah hath profaned the 
holiness of Jehovah, . . . and hath 
married the daughter of a foreign god" 



Intimations of Individual Sonship 161 

(v. ii). The argument of the prophet 
would be without force or point, if the 
interpretation of the Universalist were 
correct. 

Beyschlag confesses that even such fer- 
vent passages as Isaiah 63: i6 and Jere- 
miah 31: 20 ^'refer not so intimations of 

individual 

much to a personal relation sonswp 
of God to the individual, as His gracious 
relation to the nation as such" (11 : 81). 
Nevertheless the idea of a personal son- 
ship does seem to be shadowed forth in a 
few passages of the Old Testament. In 
I Chronicles 17: 13, speaking of Solomon, 
God says: "I will be his Father, and he 
shall be my son/' And in Psalm 89 : 26 
it is said that David, but only as a type of 
the one truly Firstborn, shall cry, "Thou 
art my Father, my God." But such an 
idea is very rare, and is connected only 
with those in official and typical rela- 
tions,^ so that Wendt (13: 187, 188) says 
truly, "The name of Father was by no 

* See also Ps, 82: 6. compare John 10 : 34, 35. 



162 A Divine Family, and Fatherly Nature 

means the customary and prevalent desig- 
nation of God by the Israelites. Nowhere 
in the Psalms, which were the most direct 
expressions of reverence to God as taught 
in the Old Testament, was God addressed 
as Father of the people of Israel or of in- 
dividual Israelites." God is called King, 
and his people servants of God (Ps. 5:2; 
19: II, 13). 

But while the individual invocation of 
God as Father is absent from the Old 
A Divine family, Testament (26: 94), the 

and fatherly . _ . . >. .. . 

nature idcas 01 a Divinc family, and 

of a fatherly nature in God, are not alto- 
gether wanting. In that family the angels 
appear as the sons of God (Job 38: 7; 
Ps. 29 : I ; 89 : 6). The fatherly nature is 
indicated in such tender expressions as 
these : "A Father of the fatherless . . . 
is God" (Ps. 68: 5). "Like as a father 
pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth 
them that fear him'' (Ps. 103: 13). 
While these passages beautifully express 
the thought that God stands in such an 



Prophetic Glimpses of Personal Sonship 163 

attitude of loving helpfulness toward the 
needy as we are in the habit of ascribing 
to the spirit of a true father, they are very 
far from teaching that God is the actual 
Father of all men. 

The prophets, however, begin to catch 
glimpses of the day when the Divine Fa- 
therhood no longer shall be Prophecies of a 

gracious per- 

considered as bemg based on soi^ai sonsmp 
a peculiar relation to any nation as such, 
but only on spiritual and moral conditions, 
when many, who had been considered 
sons because of their nationality, shall lose 
their sonship by wickedness (Is. 49: 20, 
21), and Gentiles shall be adopted in their 
place (Is. 49: 20-23; 65: I ; 66: 19-21). 
Says Wendt (13: 187): "The realiza- 
tion of the ideal religious relationship be- 
tween Jehovah and the people in the 
longed-for latter day was indicated by the 
fact that the people should be called the 
'sons of the living God' (Hos. i : 10), and 
that God should be called by them *my 
Father' (Jer. 3: 19)." But this is not to 



164 Summary of the 

be on the ground of nature or creation, 
but of redemption and grace. "Thou, 
Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer 
from everlasting is thy name" (Is. 
63:16). 

The teaching of the Old Testament on 
this subject may be summarized thus: 
Summary of (i) Adam was Constituted 

Old Testament 

teaching ongmally a son of God in 

possession of the full image of the pure 
moral Divine Personality. This is partly 
taken from the New Testament declara- 
tion, but is all implied in the Old Testa- 
ment history. (2) As a consequence of 
the alienation by sin, the relation of son- 
ship was lost, and has never been trans- 
mitted by natural generation to any of 
Adam's offspring, who have been begot- 
ten, not in the image of God, but in the 
image of fallen Adam, and mankind since 
has been divided into two classes: "the 
seed of the serpent," and "the sons of 
God." (3) The Hebrews as a nation were 
called th^ children of Jehovah, in virtue 



Old Testament Teaching 165 

of their national election to be a peculiar 
people (Deut. 14: i, 2). This is the 
dominant idea of the Fatherhood in the 
Old Testament: namely, that it is a na- 
tional and not an individual relationship. 
''It is nowhere/' says Dr. Westcott, "ex- 
tended to men generally," and Gentiles 
can participate in it only "by incorpora- 
tion in the chosen family" (30: 2y). 

(4) There are minor intimations that this 
filial relationship may also be individual. 

(5) Still in the Old Testament God is not 
addressed personally as Father, even in 
the Psalms, though there is a recognition 
of a heavenly Divine family, and a very 
tender fatherly affection in God. (6) But 
the day is anticipated when sonship and 
Fatherhood shall be dependent upon like- 
ness of moral character between Father 
and son, when all men individually may 
become the sons of God, without regard 
to their nationality. (7) In that day this 
relationship will be grounded, not in crea- 
tion, but in redemption, 



166 A New Conception of God 

B. — The Doctrine Taught by Jesus 

Applying the test — What does Jesus 

say about it? — we find an advance so 

marked as to amount almost 

A new concep- 
tion of God ^Q ^ j^g^ revelation, not, in- 
deed, of a new nature, but of the new 
normal conception of God. The fatherly 
nature of God, which found only occa- 
sional and general expression in the Old 
Testament, is declared by Jesus to be "the 
normal and standard conception of the 
Divine Character" (13: 184). Says Dr. 
Sanday (25 : 618^) : "The name Tather' 
becomes in the New Testament what the 
name Jehovah was in the Old Testament, 
the fullest embodiment of revelation." 
(So also Bruce, 28: 109.) 

For Jesus, the natural name of God was 
Father. He was conscious of sustaining 
Father, the the individual personal rela- 

naturalname . r^ i i 

with Jesus tiou of sonship to God, and 
of living in such loving familiarity with 
the eternal and holy One as exists only in 



Provides That All May Be Children 167 

an ideal relation between father and son. 
Hence His fitness to raise His followers' 
thought of God from that of the judicial 
and kingly relation to that of the paternal. 
Being Himself in such a unique sense the 
Son of God, that He never associates 
Himself with any other in addressing God 
as Our Father, He has devoted Himself in 
word, life, death, resurrection, and con- 
tinued intercession to the one work of 
providing and teaching that all men, 
in Him, may address God provides that 

... . ,, all may be 

directly and personally as cmidren 
Father, and of persuading them to 
accept this privilege. To this end He 
made the idea of the paternal love of 
God the foundation of His proclama- 
tion of the kingdom. The opening 
words of our model prayer take us to 
a height of holy and exalted intimacy 
with God never before attained, even 
in the most highly devotional strains 
of the Psalms. So full is His revela- 
tion of the Divine Fatherhood, and so 



168 W. N. Clarke 

often is this name upon His lips, that 
many have made 

(a) The Claim That Jesus Teaches the 
Universal Fatherhood of God 

Dr. William Newton Clarke sets up this 

claim, but makes little use of Scripture in 

substantiation of his position. 

W. N. Clarke ^ , r • • i • , , 

In the few citations which he 
makes from the words of Jesus^ the refer- 
ence in every case is plainly to the truly 
spiritual children of God, and not to all 
men in general regardless of character or 
attitude toward God; and he carefully 
avoids all reference to those passages 
clearly inconsistent with his doctrine 

(i: 131)- 

Professor Bruce affirms that ^'J^sus 
said : God is the Father of men, sin not- 
withstanding. He said this 

Bruce 

not merely with reference to 
the best men, . . . but even with refer- 
ence to the most depraved and degraded" 

'Matt. 5: 4; 6: 6, 32; 7: 11; 26.' 39; Luke ii: 2. 



Bruce 169 

(9: no). It is unfortunate that Dr. 
Bruce does not deign to refer his readers 
to so much as one single Scriptural ex- 
pression in proof of this bold and wholly- 
gratuitous declaration. This is the more 
remarkable, inasmuch as he does not thus 
treat the other doctrines of the Kingdom. 
He says that he finds in Christ's behavior 
toward men, more than in His teaching, 
the proof of the universal Fatherhood, 
that His "deeds more emphatically than 
the most pathetic and beautiful words 
. • . said to all who could understand: 
'The most depraved of men is still a man, 
my brother, my Father's child; therefore 
I love him, and am fully assured that God 
loves him as I do' " (9 : 113). Would not 
those "who could understand" rather in- 
terpret the deeds of Jesus, in harmony 
with His words, as saying: "The most 
depraved of men is still a man, who may 
become and ought to be my brother, my 
Father's child; therefore because of this 
possibility in manhood, God so loves him 



170 Wendt 

that He gave His only Son that man 
might not perish, and I so love him that I 
freely give my life to redeem him from the 
power of Satan into the family of my 
Father." 

Dr. Wendt says that Jesus proceeds 

upon the certainty that God is the Father 

of all men, "as upon an un- 

Wendt 

doubted axiom'' (13: 199). 
This position he attempts to prove by ref- 
erence to the teachings of Jesus, not one 
of which, as we shall see, must bear such 
an interpretation. Unlike Clarke, Bruce, 
and others, however, Wendt also finds 
those passages which cannot be made to 
bear such an interpretation, and, on the 
basis of those teachings, regardless of the 
startling inconsistency with his former 
exegesis, he declares that "whoever con- 
ducts himself in opposition to the will of 
God, proves just on that account that he 
belongs merely to the world and does not 
participate in the true character of God, 
but is a child of the Devil'' (17: 116, 



Wendt 171 

117). Can it be that the Great Teacher 
ever taught concerning any being, at 
one and the same time, both that he 
is a child of the Devil, and that God 
is his Father! 

Passing for the present his Biblical 
references, let us note the method of ar- 
gument by v^hich he proposes to reconcile 
the inconsistent teachings v^hich he at- 
tributes to Jesus. Commenting upon Mat- 
thew 5 : 44-48, he says, "God does not 
become the Father, but is the heavenly Fa- 
ther even of those who become His sons'' 
(13: 193). Now, if God can be the Fa- 
ther of those who are not His sons, but 
are the children of the Devil, and must 
become the sons of God, then I suppose 
we must believe in the universal Father- 
hood of God! And, with the same 
method of reasoning, we might believe 
in anything that happens to strike our 
fancy. 

Again he says, "This idea (that God is 
the Father of those who are not, but must 



172 Wendt 

become, His sons) would be inconceiv- 
able, if in the Fatherhood and sonship the 
mere relation of procreator and procre- 
ated were understood; for manifestly the 
Fatherhood of the one implies the exist- 
ence of sonship in the other. But, for the 
consciousness of Jesus, it is not the rela- 
tion of God to man as Creator which 
primarily is taken into account in His 
name of Father, but His unmerited, boun- 
tiful, forgiving love" (13: 193). It seems 
that this might be termed an inconceivable 
twist of a scholarly reason to make con- 
ceivable an inconceivable conception. 

In the first place, it is to be noted that 
Dr. Wendt parts company with the other- 
wise apparently unanimous conclusion of 
all advocates of the universal Divine Fa- 
therhood : namely, that this relation rests 
primarily upon "the relation of God to 
man as Creator." He says that this idea 
makes his notion inconceivable, that God 
is the Father of those who must yet he- 
come His sons. In this he is correct. But 



Wendt 173 

he fails to see that whatever fact makes 
sonship conditional and therefore limited, 
must also logically make the correspond- 
ing Fatherhood conditional and therefore 
limited. He admits that sonship in the 
Divine family is not based on creation, but 
is conditioned on character and conduct, 
and says "that one can, by his own re- 
sponsible conduct, make himself the child 
of a certain father, or can lose a certain 
filial relationship" (14: 116, 117). If he 
had seen, that, if some men are not the 
sons of God, then God is not the Father 
of all men, he would have been saved from 
attributing such inconsistency to the 
teachings of Jesus. Secondly, if the ex- 
istence of the fatherly spirit in God of an 
"unmerited, bountiful, forgiving love," 
constitutes Fatherhood, then, indeed, the 
conclusion follows that God is the Father 
of all men; for the existence of such a 
spirit is beyond question. But Wendt 
might just as rationally call any kind, 
fatherly spirited man the father of all the 



174 Brooks 

children in his neighborhood, though he 
never had but a single child of his own, 
as to call God, on any such ground as this, 
the actual Father of all men. The pos- 
session of the fatherly instinct does not 
constitute fatherhood in God or man. 
God is eternally "the Father" — that rela- 
tion is an eternal relation in the Godhead ; 
but He is not, on that account, the Father 
of those who have not yet become His 
sons. 

Bishop Brooks taught that "Jesus came 

to restore the fact of God's Fatherhood to 

man's knowledge" (8: 12). 

Brooks 

But he comes nearer to the 
truth in saying that "He is the Redeemer 
of man into the Fatherhood of God" 
(8: 12), which means, if it means any- 
thing, that Jesus came to restore to man a 
forfeited sonship, so that he might know 
God as his Father. He says further that 
Jesus came "to tell men that they were, 
and to make them actually be, the sons of 
God" (8: 14). On the basis of the uni- 



Proposed Gospel Proofs 175 

versal Fatherhood, which the good Bishop 
so strongly asserted, the two parts of this 
sentence are utterly irreconcilable ; if men 
are the sons of God, it were absurd for 
Jesus to propose "to make them actually 
he the sons of God;" and it is equally 
illogical for him to say that "He is the 
truth, and whoever receives Him becomes 
the son of God" (8: 15) ; for if all men 
are always and inalienably the sons of 
God, on what basis can they be required 
to receive Christ in order to become sons 
of God? And yet, by some process, ap- 
parently incomprehensible, the Bishop 
thought that this necessity of becoming a 
son of God, taught in John i : 12, to 
which he refers (8: 20), proves the doc- 
trine of the actual universal Fatherhood. 
Four passages from the words of Jesus 
are depended on by the advocates of this 
doctrine to establish their Proposed 
position : namely, Christ's ^^^^* ^^^^ ^ 
resurrection utterance to Mary (John 
20: 17), the Lord's Prayer, the Sermon 



176 John 20: 17 

on the Mount, and the parable of the 

Prodigal Son. 

To Mary Jesus said, "Go unto my 

brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto 

my Father and your Father, 
John 20: 17 ' n A A n A ^y 

and my God and your God. 

This was spoken to an affectionate fol- 
lower, and conveyed a message to be de- 
livered to His ^'brethren," His disciples. 
It proves that Jesus considered His true 
disciples children of God, but it makes no 
reference whatever to anyone else. 

Speaking of the invocation of the 
Lord's Prayer, the Universalist writer, 
TheLord^s Dr. Adams, asserts: "In 
rayer those words the Savior of 

mankind thrust in upon our spiritual con- 
sciousness the solemn truth that we are by 
our very natures the children of God," 
and that "to try to limit the scope of that 
address ... is a perversion of Scrip- 
ture which is excusable only to the blind- 
est prejudice'' (3: 14, 15). On the other 
hand, the Pulpit Commentary (on Matt. 



The Lord's Prayer 177 

6:9) says, "Christ places in the very fore- 
front the primary importance of the rec- 
ognition of spiritual relationship to God. 
There is no direct thought here of God as 
the All-Father in the modern and often 
deistic sense." Again, which is right? A 
study of the context, as is generally the 
case, will show that the Universalist is not 
right. 

The occasion of the utterance of this 
model prayer, Luke tells us (Luke 11: 
I, 2), was at the conclusion of one of the 
Master's special seasons of communion, 
when "one of His disciples said unto 
Him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John 
also taught his disciples. And He said 
unto them, When ye pray, say. Father." 
This prayer was uttered first upon the re- 
quest of a disciple, evidently when the few 
disciples were alone with their Lord ; and 
it was taught to the disciples, no mention 
being made of any who were not disciples. 
And in Matthew (6: 5-9), Jesus makes a 
marked distinction between the hypocrites 



178 The Lord's Prayer 

and the heathen, on the one hand, and His 
disciples, on the other: ''They love to 
stand and pray ... in the corners of 
the streets,'' and they use "vain repeti- 
tions." "Be not therefore like unto them. 
. . . After this manner therefore pray 
ye: Our Father who art in heaven." The 
"ye" is properly emphatic in this passage, 
as it appears in the Greek; for Jesus, in 
this form of invocation, would not have 
us think of a physical relationship, which 
would belong equally to the lower order 
of animals, but He would have our 
thought raised to the glorious personal 
spiritual and intimate relationship of those 
who have been born of God, and who 
alone in any real sense can approach the 
throne of grace in those soul-inspiring 
words, "Our Father who art in heaven." 
Well has it been said that this prayer 
might with propriety be called "The 
Disciples' Prayer," rather than "The 
Lord's Prayer." 

It is claimed that the keynote of the 



Sermon on the Mount 179 

Sermon on the Mount is the universal Fa- 
therhood of God and the sermon on the 
1 1 . r Mount 

universal sonship of man 
(3 : 12). On the contrary, we beheve that 
the evidence is overwhelmingly against 
this proposition, and that the Sermon 
rather unfolds the characteristics of heart 
and conduct which belong only to those 
who follow its precepts that they may be 
sons of their Father who is in heaven 
(Matt. 5:45). 

First, the Sermon is addressed pri- 
marily, not to the multitudes, but to the 
disciples. '^And seeing the multitudes, 
He went up into the mountain ; and when 
He had sat down. His disciples came unto 
Him: and He opened His mouth and 
taught them'' (Matt. 5 : i, 2). And Luke 
(6: 20) says, "And He lifted up His eyes 
on His disciples, and said. Blessed are ye 
poor; for yours is the kingdom of God." 
The situation is analogous to that of a law- 
yer addressing a jury, while a large audi- 
ence may hear and profit by all that is said. 



180 Sermon on the Mount 

Secondly, the exhortation of Matthew 
5 : 48, "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as 
your heavenly Father is perfect," reaches 
such an exalted height of instruction in 
holiness as to imply that those to whom it 
is delivered have already made consider- 
able progress in righteousness. 

Thirdly, Jesus, in telling His disciples 
what they must do "that ye may be sons 
of your Father who is in heaven'' (Matt. 
5 : 44, 45), directly implies that those who 
do not do these things can neither become 
nor remain sons of God. 

Fourthly, the Beatitudes certainly do 
not describe the character of men in gen- 
eral, but rather the ideal character of true 
disciples. "Peacemakers,'' not their op- 
posites, are "called sons of God/' 

Fifthly, two classes clearly are dis- 
tinguished and contrasted all through the 
Sermon : Those who are "the light of the 
world," and "men" before whom this 
light is to shine (Matt. 5 : 14, 16) ; those 
who ar? tp "resist not him that is evil," 



Sermon on the Mount 181 

and those who will "smite" them (v. 39) ; 
those who "persecute," and those who are 
persecuted (vv. 11, 44); "brethren," 
and "others" (v. 47) ; "hypocrites," and 
those who "seek first His kingdom" (6: 
16, 33) ; those who only "say, Lord, 
Lord," and those who "do the will" of 
God (7: 21). To one of these classes, 
Jesus never speaks of God as their Father. 

Sixthly, the expressions, "Ye are the 
salt of the earth," "Ye are the light of the 
world," "Even so let your light shine be- 
fore men; that they may see your good 
works, and glorify your Father who is in 
heaven" (Matt. 5 : 13-16), can by no pos- 
sible means be applied to any but those 
who have been born of God ; and to this 
class alone, and not to the "men" before 
whom they are to let their light shine, does 
Jesus speak of God as "your Father." 

This interpretation does not mean, as 
Dr. Adams asserts (3: 12), that this Ser- 
mon does not present a standard of char- 
acter and life to which Jesus calls all men; 



182 Parable of the Prodigal Son 

but it does mean that this Sermon — so 
much lauded by men who do not under- 
stand it and who would rob the Gospel of 
all its distinctive life and power, and re- 
duce it to a mere code of ethics for all 
men, already to be considered by their 
very nature in all their sins as the sons of 
God — contains the very heart of the Gos- 
pel; that it assumes a fundamental dis- 
tinction between two classes of men, and 
that one of these classes only — ^the class 
that possesses the very salt of the Divine 
life and reflects the light of the Sun of 
Righteousness and seeks to be perfect as 
the Father in heaven — ^has the right to 
address God as "Our Father." 

The passage in the teachings of Jesus 
most generally and strenuously urged in 
Parable of the P^oof of the doctrine that 
Prodigal son ^^^ j^ ^ universal Father, is 

the parable of the Prodigal Son. Dr. Beet 
says that "Paul never speaks of all men as 
the sons of God, but habitually uses lan- 
guage which excludes this idea,'' and that 



Parable of the Prodigal Son 183 

"in the New Testament the only excep- 
tion to this usage is found in Luke 15 : 11, 
24, where, even in the far country, the 
prodigal remembers his father, and re- 
turning is recognized as his son" (34: 
57, 58). This fact would seem to be a 
good reason for suspecting that the par- 
able itself is no exception when rightly 
interpreted. And this we believe to be the 
case. 

What was the purpose of the parable of 
the Prodigal Son? Was it to show that 
all men are prodigal sons, or even that 
they are sons at all ? No more than it was 
the purpose of the preceding parables to 
show that all men are sheep or pieces of 
coin. Was it to teach that God is the Fa- 
ther of all men, or of any man? Just as 
mfuch as it was the purpose of those other 
parables to teach that God is a Shepherd 
of real sheep or a woman hunting for a 
lost coin. What then was its purpose? 
That is revealed in the preliminary state- 
ment, narrating the events which gave 



184 Parable of the Prodigal Son 

rise to this and the parables of the Lost 
Sheep and the Lost Coin. "Now all the 
publicans and sinners were drawing near 
unto Him to hear Him. And both the 
Pharisees and the scribes murmured, say- 
ing, This man receiveth sinners, and 
eateth with them'' (Luke 15 : i, 2). The 
purpose of this exceedingly beautiful and 
touching parable is simply to exhibit and 
emphasize "the pardoning, bountiful 
grace of God vouchsafed to the sinner on 
condition of his penitent return" (13: 
197, 198). Many things in the experience 
of a sinner may find illustration in this 
parable. But it is a fundamental principle 
in the interpretation of all parables that 
the details, which are essential only to the 
proper filling up of the narrative, must not 
be pressed into service to teach beyond the 
legitimate scope of the central thought 
that it is designed shall be imparted and 
made clear. And especially is this true, 
when such teachings are found to be an 
exception to, and a contradiction of, the 



Parable of the Prodigal Son 185 

plain meaning of other passages of the 
Word. 

For example, who would think of 
teaching from the parable of the Friend 
at Midnight (Luke ii : 5-8) the essential 
selfishness of God, and from that of the 
Unjust Judge (Luke 18: 1-8) the essen- 
tial injustice of God, because the certainty 
of God's answer to prayer is compared to 
the selfish responses of these characters? 
But the basis for such teaching is exactly 
of the same kind as that supposed to be 
found in the parable of the Prodigal Son 
for the Fatherhood of God. Again, the 
resolution of the prodigal, "I will arise, 
and go to my father," was used by the 
Pelagians to prove that man could turn to 
God in his own strength without the grace 
of God assisting him.^ And Unitarians 
and Universalists still urge the circum- 
stance of the prodigal's return in support 
of their claim that repentance is a suffi- 
cient basis of forgiveness, without an 

* Trench, Notes on the Parables, pp. 309, 310. 



186 Parable of the Prodigal Son 

atoning sacrifice, that "this parable pre- 
cludes every idea of the necessity of vi- 
carious suffering, in order to the pardon 
of the penitent sinner" (35: 87). The 
doctrine of the universal Fatherhood finds 
only this same kind of groundless support 
in this parable. Upon the subjects of 
Pelagianism, the Atonement, and the Fa- 
therhood of God, the parable is equally 
silent, and their truth or falsity must be 
determined from other passages of Scrip- 
ture. 

The fact that the natural and physical 
relationship of the prodigal to his father 
could not be effaced by the sins of disobe- 
dience, is of no force as an argument for, 
and has no bearing upon, the contention 
that the gracious, spiritual, and moral re- 
lation of filiation to the Divine cannot be 
forfeited. The parable does say that the 
loving interest of God in the lost sinner 
and His unspeakably hearty welcome of 
the returning penitent, are like the affec- 
tionate longing and loving welcome of a 



God, both King and Father 187 

father for his long-lost son; but it is as 
silent as the grave on the subject of the 
Divine Fatherhood and man's filial rela- 
tion to God. 

The truth taught by Jesus in regard to 
God's Fatherhood tov^ard man, and man's 
filial relation to God, will be found to be 
contained in this statement, namely, that 

(&) Jesus Makes the Relationship Uni- 
versally Possible, hut Not thereby 
Actually Universal 

It is doubtless true that in the Old Tes- 
tament the kingly relation of God to man 
is the characteristic one, ^^^^ ^oth King 
while with Jesus it is the 
paternal relation; for in Him first has it 
been revealed clearly that all men may be- 
come the sons of God. But it is also true, 
as Dr. W. N. Clarke confesses, that "J^^s 
made much use of the kingly language. 
The mention of the kingdom of God was 
frequently upon His lips, and many of 
His parables illustrated the nature and 



188 God, both King and Father 

movements of that kingdom'' (i: 132). 
It is not true, however, that "He spoke of 
kingship which was vanishing away" 
(i : 133) ; for it is for the coming of His 
kingdom that we are taught to pray, "And 
of his kingdom there shall be no end" 
(Luke 1 : 33) ; and in the very nature of 
things God can never cease to be "the 
King eternal" (i Tim. i: 17) ; the song 
of Moses and of the Lamb will be ad- 
dressed unto the "Lord God, the Al- 
mighty, King of the ages" (Rev. 15:3); 
and on the vesture and on the thigh of the 
eternal "Word of God" is a name written 
that can never be effaced, "King of Kings 
and Lord of Lords" (Rev. 19: 13, 16). 
The ideal is for us to come to the point of 
experience, not where kingship vanishes 
away, but where we may say truly and in 
perfect confidence, "The King is our Fa- 
ther," and remember that we are to be 
princes, kings, as well as children (Rev. 

1:6). 

It is one of the gracious revelations of 



The Christian Name for God 189 

the Word that God is Father as well as 
King, that the Christian The christian 

r • T J name for God 

name for our sovereign Lord 
is Father, though this name is not used 
frequently in the Gospels with reference 
to men. ''In the New Testament," says 
Dr. Bradford (2: 62), "the name Father 
is applied to Deity (chiefly Not often used 

with reference 

by Jesus) 256 times." It is to men 
commonly supposed — Dr. Bradford seems 
to take it for granted — that the name is 
used thus frequently with reference to 
God's relation to man. But is it not all 
the more significant that the cases in 
which God is spoken of as the Father 
of men are comparatively few ? In Mat- 
thew this relation is spoken of only 
twenty-one times, in Mark twice, in Luke 
four times, and in John's Gospel, of which 
Dr. Bradford (2: 62) says, this name 
"shines from every page," God is men- 
tioned as the Father of men only once 
(John 20: 17). Several of these are du- 
plications, so that there is a record of 



190 ''Father," in Three Senses 

Jesus speaking of God as the Father of 
men only about twenty-two times. Paul 
comes behind his Master only a very little 
in this particular, using the name Father 
for God in this relation twenty-one times. 
Jesus uses this name, Father, in three 
senses : ''The Father" that is, the absolute 
Father, the model of all true fatherhood, 
essentially and eternally the Father, as the 
Son is essentially and eternally the Son 
and the archetype of all filial relationship 
to God ; ''My Father,'' by the use of which 
Jesus speaks of His own unique personal 
relationship to ^'the Father" and declares 
Himself consciously beloved as God's 
Son; "Your Father/' spoken only to 
those who through faith have come to 
participate in Christ's filial relationship 
to God. 

Jesus did, indeed, make much use of the 
name, Father. To Him that alone could 
The name in be the natural and normal 

God's kingdom ^ ^ . - . . . 

and family name for God. And it is just 
as true that He taught His disciples the 



Kingdom and Family Co-extensive 191 

use of that same name as the most fitting, 
natural, and normal name to be employed 
by those who had become the children of 
God through adoption by faith. He came 
to establish a Christian dispensation, and 
to teach a phraseology suited to Christian 
and redeemed conditions. It does not, 
therefore, follow that those who volun- 
tarily exclude themselves from these re- 
deemed conditions are entitled to the 
unrestricted use of the forms of speech 
belonging only to the kingdom of heaven 
and to the family of God. 

It seems to be undisputed that, accord- 
ing to the New Testament view, the king- 
dom does not include all men, Kingdom 

and family 

that it is limited by moral co-extensive 
and spiritual conditions. On what basis, 
then, can the Divine family, so far as men 
are concerned, be more extensive than the 
Divine kingdom ? The facts already pre- 
sented and yet to be considered, make it 
plain that there is no such basis. Jesus 
declared God, says Professor Bruce, "so 



192 Two Classes of Men 

that the name Father took its place in hu- 
man speech as the Christian name for the 
Divine Being. The declaration was an 
essential part of the doctrine of the king- 
dom. The title Father is the appropriate 
name of God in the kingdom of grace, for 
it is the kingdom of fatherly love" (9: 
109). He would have been more con- 
sistent, if he had said that this name 
is not appropriate beyond the limits of 
the kingdom of grace; in other words, 
that the kingdom and family of God 
are coextensive. 

The fact is that in the teachings of 
Jesus there is perpetuated the twofold 
Two classes of classification of mankind 
^^^ made by the Old Testament 

immediately after the record of the first 
sin. Those who then were known as "the 
seed of the serpent,'' and "the sons of 
God," He calls "the sons of the evil one" 
(Matt. 13: 38), and the "sons of your 
Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5: 45). 
In Matthew 10: 16 He sharply con- 



'* Your Father the Devil " 193 

trasts the two classes, comparing them to 
"sheep'' and "wolves/' and of the former 
He says that God is their Father (v. 20). 
Is it to be supposed that He consid- 
ered God was the Father also of the 
"wolves"? 

Nothing is taught more plainly by 
Jesus than this, that unbelievers are not in 
any sense children of God. ^ ^ ,. 

'' Unbelievers 

One of the severest rebukes clm^God 
ever uttered by the Master 
was spoken against those who had the 
effrontery, as unbelievers, to claim, what 
we are now told is the inalienable right of 
the most hardened sinner, that God was 
their Father. To the unbelieving Jews 
who made this claim, Jesus said, "If God 
were your Father, ye would love me. 
... Ye are of your father the Devil, 
and the lusts of your father it is your will 
to do. . . . He is a liar and the father 
thereof" (John 8: 39-44). We are not 
surprised to find Universalists, who have 
become adepts in explaining away the 



194 Bishop Merrill 

plain meaning of Scripture, affirming that 
Jesus uses this language "only in that 
figurative way" (3: 25) ; but even if it is 
a figure, it certainly is taking strange lib- 
erties with the teachings of Jesus, to say 
that He considered those as children of 
God whose Divine filiation He expressly 
denied, and whom He declared to be the 
children of the Devil. 

Says Bishop Merrill, "The doctrine of 
the Universal Fatherhood of God has 
been so persistently preached of late years, 
and with such enthusiasm, as to impress 
the busy, rushing masses that redemption 
was a trivial affair, a sort of make-believe 
intervention, with no serious consequences 
following its acceptance or rejection, 
everything belonging to eternal relations 
and destiny having been settled in the fact 
and law of creation. But this gratuitous 
assumption with regard to the Divine 
Fatherhood is not a new thing, although 
its greatest emphasis is of modern date. 
In our Lord's time some .unbelieving Jews 



On John 8: 39-44 195 

set up the same claim in His presence, and 
never on any other occasion did He ex- 
hibit deeper resentment, or use greater 
severity of speech, than when denying this 
claim, and rebuking those who made it. 
They were boasting of racial rights as the 
chosen people. First they said to Him, 
'Abraham is our Father.' In the thought 
of the Jew this was a high claim, and one 
which was deemed all-sufficient and in- 
disputable. But Jesus desired to impress 
them that there was a spiritual relation 
with Abraham which was of more im- 
portance than the fleshly relation. So He 
answered them, 'If ye were Abraham's 
children, ye would do the works of Abra- 
ham' — having the spiritual relation in 
mind as the relation of highest value. 
Then, not grasping His thought, and per- 
haps being piqued that their boast was not 
conceded, they advanced the higher claim, 
and said, 'We have one Father, even God.' 
This assumption raised a question of fact. 
It was sharply stated, and must be ad- 



196 Jesus Denies the Claim 

mitted or denied. If admitted, it might 
justify the modern assumption of univer- 
sal Fatherhood, or that all are God's chil- 
dren whom He created. Or, in other 
words, if this modern contention were 
sound, and if all are in fact God's chil- 
dren, then the claim of these Jews was 
right, and our Lord would have been 
compelled to acknowledge it. But He did 
not. On the other hand. He most vehe- 
mently denied it, and gave an answer 
which ought to silence forever all pre- 
tenses to being God's children on the 
ground of creation or natural relation. 
^Jesus said unto them. If God were your 
Father, ye would love me : for I proceeded 
and came forth from God ; neither came I 
of myself, but He sent me. Why do ye 
not understand my speech? even because 
ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your 
Father the Devil, and the lusts of your 
father ye will do.' Surely, then, any doc- 
trine of the Divine Fatherhood which 
holds or implies that men are naturally 



** My Brother and Sister " 197 

God's children, or children because of cre- 
ation, or in any way so related to Him as 
to exclude the necessity of redemption and 
adoption, in order to heirship in His 
family and kingdom, is not of God, but 
contrary to the plain testimony of our 
Lord Himself (33: 78-80). 

On one occasion, when Jesus was told 
that His mother and brethren desired 
to speak with Him, ^'He Not physical 

origin, but 

stretched forth His hand moral and 

spiritual 

toward His disciples, and wi^eness 
said. Behold, my mother and my brethren ! 
For whosoever shall do the will of my 
Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, 
and sister, and mother" (Matt. 12: 46- 
50). This is a clear and very emphatic 
statement of the fact that relationship in 
the Divine family is not a matter of blood, 
of physical origin and creation, but solely 
a question of moral and spiritual likeness 
to the Divine. The failure to grasp this 
distinction between human and Divine, 
natural and gracious filiation, is the cause 



198 Jesus Settles the Question 

of endless confusion on this subject. We 
are no more the children of God because 
He created us, than a watch is the son of a 
watchmaker because he made it. "There 
is not, then," says Dr. Alexander, "a 
single passage in all the four Gospels that 
makes it certain or even probable that 
Jesus taught the universal Fatherhood of 
God. . . . There is in all the passages 
where He speaks of God as Father of men 
something either in the situation or the 
context or the language itself which re- 
stricts this relation to a certain kind and 
class of men. This class consists of those 
who are bona fide disciples of Jesus . . . 
who, like Jesus, are filial in spirit and at 
heart obedient to the will of their Father, 
notwithstanding many superficial crudi- 
ties and imperfections" (20: 178, 182, 

183). 

Over against the silence of the parable 
Jesus settles it, of the Prodigal Son and all 

that some are 

not children the Unwarranted inferences 
alleged in support of the unscriptural 



A Change of Relationship Required 199 

doctrine of the universal Divine Father- 
hood, we place the positive declaration of 
Jesus to the unbelieving Jews, that they 
were not children of God but of the Devil ; 
His woe upon the scribes and Pharisees 
who "compass sea and land to make one 
proselyte, and when he is become so, ye 
make him twofold more a son of hell than 
yourselves" (Matt. 23 : 15) ; and the Mas- 
ter's own interpretation of the parable of 
the Tares, that "the good seed are the sons 
of the kingdom," but "the tares are the 
sons of the evil one; and the enemy that 
sowed them is the Devil" (Matt. 13: 38, 
39). Applying the test — What does 
Jesus say about it ? — it would indeed seem 
that the falsity of the doctrine that God is 
a universal Father^ is put forever beyond 
question. 

Now, if those who are "sons of the evil 
one" ever become "sons of your Father 
who is in heaven," something a change of 

. relationship 

more will be required than a required 
mere change of relations (3: 29) — a 



200 God's Family Graciously Open to All 

change of relationship is an absolute ne- 
cessity. 

To this end, God's family is graciously 
open to all; "for the Son of man is come 
God»s family to scek and to save that 

graciously 

open to all which was lost" (Luke 19: 
10; Matt. 9: 12, 13). It is free to all to 
become children of God. And in this 
sense alone — just as in the case of the 
Atonement — God's Fatherhood is uni- 
versal. In order that this change in man's 
relationship to God may become a reality, 
and that the transfer may take place into 
the new kingdom and family of God, 
Jesus gives the privilege, power, and 
"right to become children of God" (John 
1 : 12). But if the doctrine of the univer- 
sal Fatherhood of God be true, then this 
declaration of John that Jesus gives "the 
right to become children of God," is re- 
duced to nonsense; for what sense can 
there be in the giving of the right to a 
man "to become what he already is" (3: 
28) ? And yet the advocates of that doc- 



By Means of the New Birth 201 

trine teach this absurdity in this very lan- 
guage. John does not say that Jesus gives 
the right to reahze an existing sonship, or 
for an infant son to develop into a full- 
grown son, but to become a son. (Al- 
though the words of an Apostle, yet be- 
cause of its vital connection with the 
teachings of Jesus on the new birth as the 
means of becoming a member of God's 
family, we prefer to make an exception of 
this single passage and treat it in connec- 
tion with the words of Jesus.) 

That this change to sonship in the 
Divine family does not result from the 
process of natural genera- By means of 

,. ,. , ^ the new birth 

tion or creation, but comes 
about only by means of the new birth, is 
shown by a threefold contrast: ^'But as 
many as received Him, to them gave He 
the right to become children of God, even 
to them that believe on His name: who 
were born, not of blood [that is, says Pro- 
fessor J. S. Candlish, ''they did not be- 
come sons of God through or in virtue of 



202 Through Faith in Christ 

their being of the one blood of which God 
has made all mankind'' (25: 220^)], nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God'' (John i : 12, 13). "Ex- 
cept one be born of water and the Spirit, 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; 
and that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit'' (John 3 : 5, 6). The sinner is dead 
in trespasses and sins, and needs to re- 
ceive a new life. Such a life involves a 
new begetting, a new creation. Birth 
means the bringing into being of the 
newly begotten life. To be born, is to be- 
come somebody's child ; to be born of the 
Spirit, to be born of God, is to become a 
child of God; and there is no other way 
revealed to mortals. 

This new life and new relation of son- 
ship to God are connected with the person 
Through faith ^^ Christ, and can be received 

In Christ j • i i i 

and enjoyed only by receiv- 
ing and believing in Him (John i: 12; 
5 : 24), and thus coming into a participa- 



Privileges of Sons of God 203 

tion, as Dr. Candlish puts it, in "His own 
unique relation to the Father, which is the 
archetype of all filial relationship to God'' 
(25:218^). 

In the view of Jesus, to be a child of 
God, was in itself no common privilege 
which might be predicated privileges of 
of all, without regard to 
character, but is rather the highest honor 
and privilege that can be claimed by any 
of the sons of men. "It is by no means," 
says Weiss, "the relation in which God 
stands to all men" (26: 92-94). It is in 
itself the highest evidence of God's love, 
and can be a fact only in the kingdom 
which was founded by Jesus. But when 
one chooses this Divinely begotten rela- 
tionship, and as long as he continues to 
make it his supreme business to be a son 
of God (Matt. 5: 48; 6: 33), then all 
things are his: forgiveness (Matt. 6: 14), 
answer to prayer (Matt. 7: 11), the sup- 
ply of all need (Matt. 6: 31-33), the help 
of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 10: 19, 20), 



204 Great Confusion 

and a glorious inheritance in the everlast- 
ing kingdom of his Father (Matt. 13 : 43 ; 
25: 34; Luke 12: 32). 'Jesus, by His 
Atonement, makes the relation of sonship 
to God, and hence also the Divine Father- 
hood, universally possible, but not thereby 
actually universal. 

C. — The Teaching of the Apostles 

(aj View of the Advocates of the Uni- 
versal Fatherhood 

As to the import of what the Apostles 
have to say on the subject, there is great 
Great confusion among the advo- 

cates of the doctrine of the 
universal Fatherhood of God. Dr. W. N. 
Clarke (i: 133, 134) thinks the Epistles 
an advance on the Gospels in presenting 
the family idea, and Dr. Adams (3 : 19) 
finds here only the thought of God as the 
universal Father, and, hence, that "salva- 
tion [is] the common destiny of the race.'' 
But on the other hand. Dr. Bradford 



Acts 17: 29 20S 

(2: 65) finds the Epistles less clear than 
the Gospels, and Professor Bruce (10: 
192) says that "Paul failed to use the re- 
lation as one applicable to men in gen- 
eral." On the whole, it is confessed that 
there is not so much hope in the teaching 
of the Apostles for this doctrine, as in the 
words of Jesus ; and we already have seen 
that there is none at all there. 

Professor Bruce finds in Acts 17: 29 
the only exception in Paul's teaching to 
the doctrine of a conditional, 

Acts 17: 29 

instead of a universal, son- 
ship (10: 192, 193). "Being then the off- 
spring of God, we ought not to think that 
the Godhead is like unto gold," etc. But 
is this an exception? Let us see. The 
Apostle's argument is this : The Athenians 
ought to seek and find the Lord, because 
He is not far from any of us; they have 
their life and being in and from Him, 
even as their own poets acknowledge; and 
since they have their life and being from 
God, they ought not to think that God can 



206 Hebrews 12: 9 

possibly be like an image graven by art 
and man's device; for He who is the 
source of life, cannot Himself be lifeless, 
and the Author of man's being cannot be 
like an image made by man. This means, 
then, that since man is an intelligent per- 
sonality, God, as the Author of man's be- 
ing, must also be an intelligent Person. 
The Apostle does not use the word mot 
(sons), which contains the idea of rela- 
tionship, but he borrows a word from a 
Greek poet, yivog (offspring), which is a 
general term, used also of animals, the 
emphatic idea of which is origin, or deri- 
vation of life, and not relationship. In 
other words, this passage does not refer to 
the subject of God as a Father to any- 
body. 

The passage in Hebrews 12: 9, where 

God is referred to as "The Father of 

spirits," may refer only to the matter of 

orisfin in creation, as we 

Heb. 12:9 

Speak of a legislator as being 
the father of a bill, without any parental 



Ephesians 4:6 207 

idea involved. Or it may be that the 
writer is thinking only of believers, that 
the expression means the same as if it 
said "the Father of our spirits" (which 
may be the true reading, as the margin 
suggests), in harmony with i Corinthians 
8 : 6, "to us,'' that is, to Christian believ- 
ers, "there is one God, the Father." But 
in any case it is plain that the author does 
not refer to a universal paternal relation ; 
for in the preceding verse he speaks of a 
class of men who are ^'not sons." 

Of Ephesians 4 : 6, which calls God the 
"Father of all," Dr. Adams confesses, 
"Undoubtedly this is an ut- 

_, . . ,, , Ephesians 4: 6 

terance to Christians (3: 
20), and his assumption that it is never- 
theless a statement of a universal fact, is 
wholly gratuitous. 

Over against all of these assumptions 
and the unsubstantiated position of the 
advocates of man's universal filial rela- 
tionship to God, we now propose to show 
that 



208 The Bible Harmonious with Itself 

(&) The Apostles Teach that Man's Son- 
ship in the Divine Family is 
Conditional 
By way of introduction to this part of 
the discussion, we wish to declare our 
The Bible point of vicw I namely, that 

harmonious 

with itself the Bible IS the word of an 

Author — or, if you please, the words of 
many authors, who were inspired, en- 
lightened, and directed by One — who is 
sufficiently comprehensive in His knowl- 
edge of a subject never to contradict Him- 
self. While in an important sense there is 
such a thing as a doctrine of Paul and of 
James and of John; yet this is true only 
in the sense that God has used different 
personalities to present and emphasize the 
various elements of His truth, so that, 
when all these views are combined, we 
have, not a heterogeneous mass of contra- 
dictory and conflicting doctrines, but 
rather one harmonious, self-consistent, 
and satisfying living body of faith. Who- 
ever, therefore, brings forth from this 



The Bible Harmonious with Itself 209 

Book of living truth, teachings which are 
self-contradictory, is, to that extent, not 
an interpreter, but a misinterpreter of the 
Word of God which liveth and abideth 
forever. Consequently we have no sym- 
pathy with such a view as this from Dr. 
Bruce (lo: 189): "In Christ's doctrine 
God is always a Father, a Father even to 
the unthankful and evil, even to unfilial 
prodigals. In the Apostle's [Paul's] doc- 
trine, as commonly understood [and Dr. 
Bruce himself so understands it (10: 
192), pp. 204, 205], God becomes Father 
by an act of adoption graciously exer- 
cised toward persons previously occupy- 
ing a lower position than that of sons." 
We have seen that Jesus taught no such 
doctrine as Dr. Bruce here attributes to 
Him, and that He did teach in effect what 
this statement attributes to Paul. It is 
quite characteristic of false doctrines that 
they make the Bible self-contradictory. 
Either the Bible and the Christian system 
therein revealed are not worthy of confi- 



210 Still Two Classes 

dence, or every true doctrine must be 
based upon a harmonious and correct in- 
terpretation of the whole Book. The 
teaching of Jesus, therefore, will be found 
not to contradict the Law and the Proph- 
ets, but rather to give a more full, com- 
plete, and glorious revelation of the 
Divine Person and will. And the teaching 
of the Apostles will be simply an unfold- 
ing, under the enlightenment of the Holy 
Spirit, of the words of their unapproach- 
able Master. We have found the Old 
Testament and Jesus to be in harmony. 
We would expect to find the Apostles in 
harmony with both, and we shall not be 
disappointed. 

Following the division made by Moses 
and Jesus (pp. 1 56, 1 92 ) , the Apostles con- 
stiiitwo tinually speak of two classes 

classes <• J2 ± j.\ i 

of men: nrst, those who are 
"bastards and not sons," "aliens," "stran- 
gers," "foreigners," "enemies," "children 
of the Devil ;" secondly, "saints," "breth- 
ren," "believers," "fellow-citizens," "fel- 



Attempts at Reconciliation 211 

low-heirs," "the children of God." And 
it is a fact worthy of note, that Jesus Him- 
self and the Apostle "whom Jesus loved," 
used the strongest terms in characterizing 
the filial relation of the sinner — Jesus say- 
ing to the unbelieving Jews, "Ye are of 
your father the Devil" (John 8: 44), and 
John, that moral and spiritual character 
and life make "the children of God mani- 
fest, and the children of the Devil" 
(i Jno. 3: 9, 10). These terms are 
equaled only by Paul, who, by the Holy 
Spirit, directly addressed Elymas, of 
Cyprus, in these words, "Thou son of the 
Devil" (Acts 13: 10). 

It is interesting and suggestive to note 
the methods by which those who contend 
that God is a universal Fa- Attempts at 

■ 1 M J.1 • reconciliation 

ther reconcile these opposing 
terms on the basis of their doctrine. The 
first, easiest, and most general method, is 
the simple one of making no reference 
whatever to those passages and expres- 
sions which teach or imply that some men 



212 One Class Ignored 

are "not sons" of God. Doctors W. N. 

Clarke, Bradford, and Fair- 
one class ' 

ignored bairn, and their class almost 

universally, ignore the existence of all 
Biblical teaching out of harmony with 
their doctrine on this subject. 

With Beyschlag, all angels and devils 
are only figures of speech, having no ac- 
Figures of ^"^^^ existence, and, of course, 

speec ^j^j^ carries with it the ex- 

plaining away of all such impossible crea- 
tures as "children of the Devil." This, 
perhaps, is as satisfactory as Wendt's 
method of openly declaring contradicto- 
ries, without any attempt at reconcilia- 
tion (p. 170). 

One author, in the interest of his Uni- 
versalist theology, makes a bold attempt 
The method of ^^ reconcile with his doctrine 

Universalism ,* ,< n- ,' 

these apparently conflicting 
teachings of Scripture. Says Dr. Adams 
(3: 22-24) : "Such phrases as these refer 
not to the native and essential nature of 
the soul, . . . but to- an acquired char- 



The Method of Universalism 213 

acter. . . . Sin . . . does not, for it 
cannot, alter man's innate and constitu- 
tional relation to God. The creation of 
man in the image of God means . . . 
that man is constitutionally in the likeness 
of his Maker. He has in him all the ca- 
pacities of a true son of God, . . . and 
those capacities . . . are the inalienable 
claim of the soul to the position of son- 
ship. Is not your babe your child ? Must 
he grow to maturity, and learn to obey 
and love you, before he is your son ; or do 
his very capacities, his constitution, his 
germinal characteristics, entitle him to 
your love, your care, your oversight as a 
father? . . . Capacity for sonship is son- 
ship, when it inheres in the very constitu- 
tion of the offspring. And whatever 
inheres in that constitution cannot be lost 
out of it, except by the annihilation of life 
itself." 

Concerning this attempted reconcilia- 
tion we remark: First, his first sentence 
denies the doctrine of native (nothing is 



214 Reply to Universalism 

said here about total) depravity, a doc- 
trine taught by Jesus: ^'That which is 
born of the flesh is flesh" — flesh in the 
sense of depraved moral quality. And we 
place over against his assertion the Scrip- 
tural fact that these phrases do refer to 
"the native and essential nature," as well 
as to the "acquired character" of sinful 
souls that refuse the offer of Divine mercy 
in regeneration and are ^'by nature chil- 
dren of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). Evidently 
Paul here refers to "the native and essen- 
tial nature," to a depravity that "inheres 
in the constitution." 

Secondly, "man's innate and constitu- 
tional relation to God" — meaning there- 
by, as Dr. Adams does, the relation based 
solely on the physical birth or creation — 
since the Fall, is not a relation of sonship 
(p. 153), but only the relation of a crea- 
ture, though a very exalted creature, to 
the Creator, and of course, "sin cannot 
alter" such a relation. 

Thirdly, man by creation "is constitu- 



Reply to Universalism 215 

tionally in the likeness of his Maker" in 
the sense of being an intelligent person- 
ality; but we have seen already that the 
moral element of that original image of 
God in man, which constituted man orig- 
inally a child of God, has been lost, and 
that with it man's sonship has been for- 
feited (pp. 153, 154). 

Fourthly, your babe is your child by 
physical procreation and birth — in its 
^'constitution" and "germinal characteris- 
tics," a physical, mental, and moral image 
of your own natural self; and no circum- 
stance can alter such a fact. Man is not 
a child of God by physical generation, but 
only by a spiritual begetting or re- 
generation. Such a relationship is not 
"inalienable," but alienable, and in 
fact, many who were sons have be- 
come "aliens," "strangers," "foreigners" 
(pp. 134-145). 

Fifthly, "capacity for sonship is" not 
sonship. Your babe is not your son be- 
cause it has the capacity of becoming a 



216 Reply to Universalism 

full-grown son — it is your son from birth, 
Man is not a son of God because created 
with the capacity and endowed with the 
gracious possibility of becoming a child of 
God, but because by faith he receives the 
Savior and is born of God and from that 
birth is a son of God. 

Sixthly, sonship to God does not by 
nature "inhere in the constitution'' of 
man, as we have seen, but is a matter of 
spiritual and gracious relationship, and 
consequently the last sentence of Dr. 
Adams is without bearing on the subject. 

That sonship in the Divine family can 
be and has been forfeited, has been shown 
(pp. 127-145 ) . Here we need only to be re- 
minded again that man's filial relation to 
God is not based upon any physical fact, 
but is entirely a spiritual matter, a ques- 
tion of grace. And that which is of grace 
may cease, when the conditions of receiv- 
ing or retaining grace are not complied 
with. Sonship does not "inhere in the 
constitution" so that it "cannot be lost out 



Reply to Universalism 217 

of it/' but is a gift of grace, and hence 
may be withdrawn. Therefore Dr. 
Adams' "most serious difficulty" is wholly 
imaginary. He says that God "makes us 
in His image or not in His image. If 
... in His image, then He makes us 
by very birth and constitution His chil- 
dren. If he does not make us in His 
image, . . . how can He hold us guilty 
for conforming to the very constitution 
He has given us ?" For an answer to this, 
we need first to remember what has been 
said concerning the nature of that 
"image" (p. 152) ; and, secondly, to be 
reminded that God at first created man 
pure and a member of His family; that 
man chose sin and thereby forfeited his 
sonship; that, while hy nature man since 
has been begotten in the image of fallen 
Adam, by grace, through the virtue of 
Christ's sacrifice, every child still comes 
into this world a member of God's family ; 
that God desires that everyone should 
choose so to continue; and that, when 



218 Reply to Universalism 

man, in spite of this provision, deliberate- 
ly chooses sin, and thus forfeits his gra- 
cious relationship, God still places before 
him the gracious possibility of a regener- 
ated and renewed nature, of being born 
again and becoming a child of God. 
When, in the presence of Calvary, man 
willfully turns from God, rejects Christ, 
and refuses these provisions of grace for 
deliverance from sin and a renewal in 
holiness, it cannot be difficult to see how 
God can and must hold him guilty, unless 
the latitudinarian ^liberalism" of the one 
troubled with this difficulty, has led him 
to the logical outcome of his principles, 
from indiflference to truth to indifference 
to righteousness. 

The attempt, therefore, to reconcile the 
conflicting descriptive phrases of the two 
classes of men found in the Apostolic 
teachings on the basis of the universal 
Divine Fatherhood, utterly falls to the 
ground. In common, then, with the 
teaching of the Old Testament and of 



Sonship by Adoption 219 

Jesus, the Apostles recognize men as sus- 
taining a twofold filial relation, which 
divides them into two classes, known as 
"the children of God,'' and those who are 
''not sons'' of God, but are "children of 
the Devil." 

This last phrase, "children of the 
Devil," represents a state of ruin as the 
result of sin, which necessi- sonshipby 
tates a possible revolution of ^ ^^ ^^^ 
man's nature and relationship, in order 
that every member of this class may be- 
come a member of the first class, known 
as "the children of God." The keyword 
in Apostolic teaching for the solution of 
this mighty problem is "adoption" or son- 
ship. This means, as Weiss puts it, that 
"man is no more in himself a child of God 
than he is righteous in himself" (26: 
449) ; that those who are to become sons 
by adoption are manifestly not sons by 
their natural birth, for, says Dr. Beet, "no 
Roman adopted his own son" (34: 57). 
And he adds, "Paul never speaks of all 



220 Sonship Through the New Birth 

men as sons of God, but habitually uses 
language which excludes this idea" (34: 
57). In Roman law, adoption, says Dr. 
Candlish (24: 41^), "strictly denoted the 
taking, by one man, of a son of another to 
be his son." And this is what it means in 
Apostolic teaching. God has manifested 
His love in that He has made it possible 
to transform children of the Devil into 
sons of God, by adopting them into His 
own family and giving them a right to the 
inheritance of heaven. 

But in order that man may be a real and 
not a merely legal son of God, having a 
Sonship truly filial spirit, partaking of 

new birth the Divine, instead of the 

Satanic nature, the Divine life must be 
begotten in him, he must be horn of God, 
his sonship must proceed, not simply from 
adoption, but from a spiritual birth, which 
makes him as truly and really a son of 
God, as his physical birth made him a son 
of his earthly father. And the Apostles 
constantly reiterate the teaching of their 



Likeness of Nature by Birth 221 

Master that God's children are "begotten" 
and "born of God/'^ 

There always must be a common nature 
between a father and his son. In human 
relationship, this is deter- Likeness of 

11 1 1 -11-1 nature by 

mined by the physical birth. ^irth 
So also does the spiritual birth determine 
^spiritual and moral likeness between God 
and His newborn son. "If ye know that 
He is righteous, ye know that everyone 
also that doeth righteousness is begotten 
of Him'' (i Jno. 2: 29). "Whosoever is 
begotten of God doeth no sin." (i Jno. 
3:9). There can be no such likeness of 
character and life, except from the birth 
of the Spirit; and without the new birth, 
there is no such thing as being a son of 
God. "In this the children of God are 
manifest, and the children of the Devil: 
whosoever doeth not righteousness is not 
of God, neither he that loveth not his w 
brother" (i Jno. 3: 10). 

God promises to be a Father only to 

*Gal. 4: 29; Jas. i: i8; i Pet. i: 3, 23; i Jno. 5: i. 



222 Sonship by Grace 

those who "come out from among them/^ 
and are "separate," and who "touch no 
unclean thing f and to such, and to such 
only, does He say, "Ye shall be to me sons 
and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" 
(2 Cor. 6: 17, 18). It is a pity that this 
holy relationship has been made out to be 
a thing common and unclean, based upon 
a physical generation instead of upon a 
spiritual regeneration, and applied equally 
to those who have received the washing of 
regeneration and the renewing of the 
Holy Spirit, and to those who refuse this 
washing and prefer to wallow in the mire 
of sin and all uncleanness. 

Human sonship in the Divine family is 
not from nature, but by grace. "That is," 
Sonship by ^ays Paul, "it is not the chil- 

children of God; but the children of the 
promise are reckoned for a seed" (Rom. 
9: 8; 4: 16). To be a child of God, man 
must be born of God, in His moral like- 
ness, a fact which, says Beyschlag, "is evi- 



Grounded in Redemption 223 

dent from the nature of God as holiness 
and righteousness'' (12:461). 

This sonship in the Divine family is 
grounded, not in creation, but in redemp- 
tion. "God sent forth His Grounded in 
c. ii i TT • 1 X redemption 

Son . . . that He might 
redeem them that were under the law, 
that we might receive the adoption of 
sons" (Gal. 4: 4, 5). 

Sonship is received through faith ; "for 
ye are all sons of God, through faith, in 
Christ Jesus" (Gal. "i: 26). ^ ^.,. ^ 

•^ \ %j / Conditioned on 

Not only did Christ, as the ^^'^^ 
Firstborn of the family of God, lay the 
foundation in His atoning sacrifice upon 
which our sonship might be based, but our 
sonship "requires vital union with Him, 
and participation in His life and Spirit" 
( 19 : 145) , and that union is accomplished 
by faith. 

Sonship means a "new creation" "in 
righteousness and holiness of Result "anew 
truth" (Eph. 4: 24), a re- *''*"'"^" 
suit that is wrought "through the wash- 



224 Determining Factor of Sonship 

ing of regeneration and renewing of the 
Holy Spirit'' (Titus 3:5; John 3:5). 

The Holy Spirit witnesses with our 
spirits to the specific fact of sonship 
^.^ ^ (Rom. 8: 15, 16; Gal. 4: 6), 

Witness and ^ ^^ 9 t / ? 

?lc\To?'"^ a glorious truth, which "the 
sons ip doctrine of the universal Fa- 

therhood of God has aided to becloud'' 
(28: 33). And the possession of the 
Spirit is the determining factor of our 
sonship; for "if any man hath not the 
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. 
8:9), and "as many as are led by the 
Spirit of God, these are sons of God" 
(Rom. 8: 14), "words," says Beyschlag, 
"which manifestly exclude the possi- 
bility of God receiving men as His chil- 
dren who have not received the Spirit" 
(12: 202), and which put it beyond 
doubt that those who are led by another 
spirit are not sons of God. 
Pledge of the I^^ the Apostolic View, as in 

inheritance .1 • r t 1 • • 

the View of Jesus, sonship in 
itself is the pledge of our possession of 



Blessings of Real Sonship 225 

the promised inheritance. "If a son, then 
[because and in virtue of that very fact 
and relationship] an heir" (Gal. 4: 7). 

The blessings of this filial inheritance, 
thus assured to us because of our "adop- 
tion as sons through Jesus giessin sof 
Christ unto Himself," are, in reailolswp 
part, that we have "grace freely bestov^ed 
on us in the Beloved, . . . redemption 
through His blood, the forgiveness of our 
trespasses" (Eph. i: 5-7), freedom from 
the law and from "the mind of the flesh" 
which "is enmity against God" (Rom. 
8: 2, 5-9; Gal. 4: 5); we are endowed 
with the Spirit of sonship (Gal. 4:6), 
and "sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
promise" (Eph. i : 13) ; we have God for 
our Father (Col. 1:2), and hence ours is 
the confidence of a filial intercourse with 
Him (Rom. 8: 15; Gal. 4: 6); He im- 
plants the impulse to keep His law ( Rom. 
8: 13, 14; Heb. 8: 10), makes "known 
unto us the mystery of His will" (Eph. 
1:9), and guarantees our right, as long 



226 Deception of Fictitious 

as we are sons, to the future inheritance 
(i Pet. i: 3-5). All these blessings be- 
long to all the redeemed sons of God, and 
they belong to them as sons. "If children, 
then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs 
with Christ'' (Rom. 8: 17). This re- 
cital makes evident the truth of this pas- 
sage from Dr. Bruce (10: 192): "It is 
certain at least that St. Paul did most 
vigorously enforce the filial dignity and 
privileges of Christians, and in connec- 
tion therewith the duty incumbent on all 
believers to take out of their filial stand- 
ing all the comfort and inspiration it was 
fitted to yield. Nothing is more funda- 
mental in Pauline hortatory ethics than 
the exhortation: Stand fast in sonship 
and its liberties and privileges." 

Of course, on the foregoing point of 
the inalienable blessings of sonship, other- 
wise orthodox Christians, 

Deception of ' 

Universal who believe in the universal 

sons ip Fatherhood, part company 

with apostolic teaching ; for, if all men are 



Universal Sonship 227 

by nature the children of Jehovah, then 
there are countless numbers w^hose son- 
ship in the Divine family is bringing them 
none of the foregoing blessings enumer- 
ated by the Apostles as belonging to this 
relationship (Eph. i: 5-14), and, unless 
one is to accept real Universalism entire, 
even hell itself is full of the sons of God. 
But this is not Apostolic teaching. They 
evidently never heard of such a destiny 
for any child of God. Their teaching 
w^as. Be sure that you are a son, and the 
inheritance will take care of itself as the 
inherent privilege of sonship in the Divine 
family. It vv^ould not seem to be an open 
question, that the sonship v^hich is free to 
all, but contingent on personal choice, and 
involving in itself the eternal heavenly in- 
heritance, is far preferable to a sonship 
that is common to all, but which may 
leave the sun of its possessor to set in 
eternal night. Some one may ask, What 
is the difference whether one holds that 
sonship is inalienable and the inheritance 



228 A Sure Basis of Hope 

forfeitable, or that sonship is conditional 
and the inheritance inherent in the fiHal 
relation? It makes this difference, that 
the latter position is Scriptural and the 
former unscriptural — and that is a wide 
difference; that, according to Scripture, 
as we have seen, while sonship exists, the 
inheritance is not forfeitable ; and that the 
doctrine of inalienable natural sonship 
strikes at the foundation of the whole 
Christian system (pp. 79-93). 

Without doubt, in the Biblical view, 

sonship in itself assures the child great 

^ . ^ privilesres. If you are a 

A sure basis of ^ ^ -^ 

nope child, and as long as you are 

a child, the inheritance is inalienably 
yours. This is Apostolic logic. "If chil- 
dren, then heirs." Well then may Dr. 
Bruce say, notwithstanding his idea of 
Paul's failure to grasp the doctrine of uni- 
versal sonship (pp. 204, 205) — manifest- 
ly an intentional failure on Paul's part — 
"There can be no question that, for the 
Apostle, the filial standing of a believer is 



Sonship Universally Possible 229 

a very real and precious thing. It is as 
real/' he adds, ^^as if it were based on 
nature, and not on an arbitrary act of 
adoption" (lo: 189). Probably to the 
Apostle's mind, sonship v^as all the more 
real and precious for this very reason, 
that it is based on a participation in the 
Divine nature through a spiritual birth 
grounded in the gracious work of the re- 
deeming Son, which gives a much more 
substantial basis for sonship that means 
something than that which Dr. Bruce 
calls "nature." 

The foregoing exegetical argument has 
made it clear that man's sonship in the 
Divine family is conditional, „ ^. 

•^ ' Sonship 

and not inevitably universal ; Sn?veS ^""^ 
for it has been shown that ^^^^^ 
the Biblical doctrine is that God is not the 
Father of any man because He has cre- 
ated him, but that He is our Father only 
in and through Christ; that sonship and 
Fatherhood are grounded, not in creation, 
but in redemption; that we are sons of 



230 Scripture Ignored 

God, not by being born physically, but by 
being born again, born of the Spirit, born 
of God; that Jesus, by His Atonement, 
has made Fatherhood and sonship uni- 
versally possible, but not thereby actually 
universal; and that every responsible 
moral agent has the privilege and is under 
the obligation and necessity of determin- 
ing his own spiritual affiliation. And thus, 
since the final test of any doctrine is the 
Scriptural, the decisive blow is struck at 
the teaching that God is a universal Fa- 
ther, by the fact that this doctrine has no 
basis in Scripture — neither in the Law, 
the Prophets, the Psalms, the words of 
Jesus, nor the teachings of the Apostles. 

D. — Fatal to the Doctrine of the 
Universal Fatherhood, that it 
Is Not Grounded in Scripture 

We have noted before that little effort 
„ . ^ is made to put this doctrine 

Scripture ^ 

ignored ^^ ^ Scriptural basis. When- 

ever such an attempt is made, it ends 



Imagination and Sentimentalism 231 

in much misinterpretation of the Word, 
and generally in utterly ignoring those 
portions of Scripture which clearly prove 
the universal Fatherhood to be an unten- 
able doctrine. 

Apparently this teaching is based main- 
ly on imagination and sentimentalism. 
In saying this, we do not imagination 
mean to take an unfair ad- sentimentalism 
vantage by attempting to create a preju- 
dice. Dr. Bradford has written a book 
for the purpose of establishing this doc- 
trine and interpreting all other problems 
by it. He uses Scripture when that suits 
his preconceived purpose, and overrides 
or ignores the Word with equal impunity 
when it stands in his way. He makes this 
doctrine "the basis of optimism," pictures 
the outcome, and then confesses, "True, 
this is imagination" (2: 98). But it is 
not as purely imaginary as his basic doc- 
trine. By this doctrine he interprets the 
problem of punishment, and proves his 
own utter untrustworthiness as a teacher 



232 Imagination and Sentimentalism 

in this realm of thought, by this declara- 
tion : "The ultimate question, when such 
subjects are approached, is not what is 
written, even in the Bible, . . . but 
rather what . . . coincides with the 
voice of the heart" (2: 233). "A moth- 
er's intuition is more trustworthy" (2: 
244). If Dr. Bradford wishes to transfer 
the basis of his hopes to the teachings of 
those lands where "the voice of the heart" 
and "a mother's intuition" have not been 
formed under the influence of "what is 
written in the Bible," he will find no ob- 
stacle in his way resulting from any en- 
vious disposition on our part. But he will 
not do it; for as soon as he reaches the 
subject of death and immortal life, where 
"human feelings" cause people to "regard 
death as the most to be dreaded of con- 
ceivable events," and "our human hearts 
rebel at the processes by which we are 
disciplined into grace and beauty," he re- 
turns to the teachings which would not 
serve his purpose in the preceding chapter 



Imagination and Sentimentalism 233 

— the teachings of Jesus and Paul — for 
that "vision'' in which "death goes out of 
sight in the glory that is being revealed" 
(2 : 268, 269, 271, 2'j2). But he who has 
ignored those teachings as being less to 
be trusted than "the voice of the heart" 
and "a mother's intuition" concerning the 
doom of the impenitent, is estopped from 
quoting the same teachers as authority to 
still "the voice of the heart" and "a 
mother's intuition" on the subject of 
death, and to give comfort by their rev- 
elation of glory for the righteous. It is 
just such sentimentalism as this — senti- 
mentalism that persists in ignoring the 
iniquity of sin and the righteous and puni- 
tive wrath of the Almighty against wick- 
edness — that is determined to make it ap- 
pear that the Holy God is the Father of 
all spirits, even of the most depraved and 
unholy. The reason of this, it has been 
made manifest (p. 104), is the evident de- 
sire to rid the world of the Scriptural idea 
of final punishment for sin. 



234 No Universal Fatherhood 

Since we have learned the real teaching 
of the Bible on the subject, v^e are not 
Scripture the Surprised that those who 

only basis for a . 

true doctrine hold tO the notlOU that thlS 

Fatherhood is universal, make little or no 
use of Scripture in the attempt to estab- 
lish their doctrine, and that they even un- 
dertake to minify the authority of the 
holy Book. But if we are not to be left in 
the thick fog of human conjecture, the 
Bible must be "our only and sufficient 
rule of faith,'' and by it alone this doc- 
trine must be judged. Furthermore, 
without this basis, no one, so far as we 
know, has ever been able, in a truly filial 
spirit and feeling, to call God Father. 
The Greeks prayed to Father Zeus, but in 
doing so, says Beyschlag, they "thought 
only of the author and preserver of 
nature" (ii: 80, 8i). It is a profound 
truth, that "The impulse to say 'Father,' 
is an impulse of faith alone" (i: 118), 
though it also may find rational "support 
from the scientific side." Where does 



In the Bible 235 

that impulse receive any adequate inspira- 
tion outside of Biblical revelation? And 
if we are dependent upon the Bible for 
this impulse, then we must call God "our 
Father" only in harmony with the teach- 
ing of the Book that furnishes the filial 
spirit and impulse. But that Book knows 
nothing of an unconditional imiversal 
Fatherhood. 



PART III 

THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF THE 
FATHERHOOD OF GOD AND 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 



PART in 

THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF 

THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD AND 

THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 



A. — The Doctrine Stated 
We are now in possession of the data 
necessary to a systematic statement of the 
doctrine under consideration, Fatherhood 
excepting only that we first 
must understand what we mean by father- 
hood. At this point there is a vital weak- 
ness among the advocates of the false 
doctrine. They all confound fatherhood 
with origination, creation, and affection- 
ate providence.^ If, however, we would 
avoid endless confusion, we must seek an 
exact definition, giving only what is es- 
sential to all fatherhood, wherever that 

^ See i: 120, 121; 2: 64; 3; 26; 18: 11. 



240 Fatherhood Defined 

relationship is found, whether it is phys- 
ical or spiritual, natural or moral, ani- 
mal, human, Satanic, or Divine. Accord- 
ing to Webster, a father is "one who has 
begotten a child/' Including an element 
universally acknowledged, that "identity 
of nature between parent and child is es- 
sential to the idea of fatherhood" (2: 59; 
i: 120), we formulate the following 
definition: Fatherhood implies the be- 
getting of a child with a nature in the 
likeness of the father. A father is one 
who has begotten a child in his own like- 
ness. This nature or likeness involves 
more than mere personality, which, ac- 
cording to Dr. Bradford, "is all that dis- 
tinguishes him (man) as in the image of 
God" (2: 281). The qualities of per- 
sonality do not exhaust the Biblical idea 
of the Divine image in which man was 
and is to be. That personality must be 
Divine and not Satanic — holy and not 
sinful. Any man is sufficiently like any 
other man, so that it might be said, in a 



The Method a Mystery 241 

very true sense, that he is in the image of 
the other man. But in a larger and truer 
sense he is in the image of the man who is 
his father, he has received and partakes of 
the life of that man as of no other, he has 
certain peculiarities of nature, thought, 
action, etc., that otherwise he would not 
possess. Such, in analogy, is the differ- 
ence between the image of God univer- 
sally existing in man despite his sin (but 
which no more makes him a son of God 
than any one man's likeness to his fellow- 
man makes all other men his father), and 
that image of holy personality which con- 
stitutes sonship. 

The method of the begetting implied in 
fatherhood in the animal and human 
kingdoms we all understand The method a 
to be that of procreation. ^^^ ^^^ 
But in the spiritual realm of relationship 
in the Godhead and between God and 
man, the method of the begetting must 
remain an unfathomed mystery. 

One thing, however, is certain. The 



242 Begetting, Not Creating 

notion of creation, in the sense in which 
Begetting, not that word generally is used, 

creating j^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ .^^^ ^^ ^^^ 

therhood. Christ is not a creature, and 
yet He is the First-begotten Son of God. 
For the production of being, creation is 
necessary; for the production of a child, 
there must be a begetting. Seeking to 
emphasize the greatness of the spiritual 
transformation required in regeneration 
and thinking of the production of a new 
moral nature and a new relationship, it is 
very proper to speak of the newly born 
child of God as a new creature, a new 
creation, in perfect harmony with the 
fact that "there is but one way through 
which the relation of sonship can be es- 
tablished, and that is by begetting" (29: 
109). And this is no mere figure of 
speech. Jesus meant more than this in 
calling God His Father, and doubtless 
also in calling God the Father of His dis- 
ciples. When God begets children among 
men, it means that He confers upon men 



Filiation Corresponds to Nature 243 

the nature and disposition of sons, mak- 
ing actual sons out of those who were not 
sons, by imparting to them His own 
nature and life. The filial relationship 
can never be created or made, but can 
only be begotten. 

Man may be a partaker of the nature of 
the Satanic personality, and he may be a 
partaker of the nature of the Filiation 

. corresponds 

Divme personality — ^he may to nature 
be a child of the Devil, or a child of God, 
though we may not be able to comprehend 
the process in either case. If man par- 
takes of the Divine nature, he is a child of 
God; if of the nature of Satan, he is a 
child of the Devil. Filiation corresponds 
to the nature begotten. 

Another thing is certain. In this realm 
we have to do only with a moral and 
spiritual relationship after a moral and 

, -.- - - - . - spiritual 

the likeness of that which relationship 
exists eternally in the Godhead between 
the Father and the Son. All physical 
notions are excluded (pp. 129-133). The 



244 God Eternally the Father 

paternal relationship of God to any being 
depends upon a Divine spiritual begetting 
of that being in the moral and spiritual 
likeness of God. With this understand- 
ing of what we mean by fatherhood, and 
on the basis of the exegetical develop- 
ments of Part II, we are prepared for a 
statement of the true doctrine of the Fa- 
therhood of God as taught in the Holy 
Scriptures. 

Before there was a man on the earth or 
a created spirit in the heavens to be a 
God eternally ^hild of God, by virtue of 

the Father ,i , , . i ... 

the relations always existing 
in the Godhead, God is, and from eternity 
has been, "the Father" with a true fa- 
therly nature of love. 

Speaking only from the standpoint of 
the Fatherhood, with no thought of at- 
His desire for tempting in this statement to 

exhaust the Divine motives, 
man was created to satisfy God's desire 
for sons. Dr. Fairbairn beautifully 
brings out this thought of the necessity 



Man Originally God's Son 245 

of the paternal and filial relations in the 
Godhead in order to the eternal existence 
of Divine love, and how "this eternal love 
explains the causal impulse, the beginning 
of the creation of God" (7: 410, 411). 
His character of Father led to the crea- 
tion of men capable of satisfying His 
fatherly nature by becoming His sons. 

Man originally was a son of God. 
There is no occasion for denying the 
original sonship of Adam, Man originaUy 
except on the part of the ex- 
treme evolutionist (p. 156), and by rigid 
Calvinists who hold, with CandHsh (32: 
254, 113-116) and Wright (31: vi, vii, 
11-25), that "sonship puts an end to pro- 
bation." The great fact that vindicates 
the Divine dealing with our race, is that 
God started man right as a member of 
His own family (p. 152), so that man 
himself must cancel his filial relationship 
and go out, if he is ever to cease to be a 
son in the family of God (pp. 133-145). 

When man by the choice of sin lost that 



246 Sonship Lost and Restored 

moral and spiritual likeness of nature to 
o V.' . 4.r. God which is essential to the 

Sonship lost by 

^^° constitution of sonship in the 

Divine family, he lost his sonship (p. 
153). A son must be in the likeness of his 
father; a son of God must be a partaker 
of the Divine nature, of God's holiness. 
Thus was ended God's fatherly relation- 
ship to man, but not His fatherly instincts 
and desire for sons. Henceforth God and 
man were related as Father and son only 
in the thought and intention of the Divine 
love, not in fact. 

God still longed for sons and the well- 
being of all His creatures, and, therefore, 
Provision for provided the sacrifice of His 

the restoration . 

of sonship First-bcgottcn Son that this 

purpose of Divine love might be realized. 
Here was a manifestation of the same 
spirit, which, as we have seen, was the 
causal impulse of creation. This is not 
because He is man's Father. Creation 
must precede God's relationship of Fa- 
therhood to man. After sin entered, and 



Sonship Grounded in the Atonement 247 

annulled that relationship, the provision 
of atonement must precede the paternal 
and filial relationship between God and 
man. It was not a paternal, but the 
Divine love that led to creation and then 
to redemption. God did not seek to save 
men because they were His sons, but 
rather because of His desire for the hap- 
piness of the creatures whose existence 
and happiness He had willed and because 
of His longing for sons and their fellow- 
ship (7:464). 

Since the Fall, the paternal and filial 
relationship between God and man has 
been grounded, not in crea- sonship 

. grounded in 

tion, but m the Atonement, the Atonement 
This is the vital point in question between 
so-called "Liberalism'' and evangelical 
Christianity. Is man by nature or only 
by grace a son of God ? Is sonship in the 
Divine family grounded in the physical 
creation or in redemption? . 

JL ne 1SSU6 

Is it a natural or a gracious JJ^LiTemiism" 

t i.' 1 • !i T\ • and Orthodoxy 

relationship? Do we receive 



248 The Issue Between 

it from Adam or from Christ? Grant 
that it is a natural, universal, and inal- 
ienable relationship, and the Atonement 
vanishes as a work of supererogation 
(pp. 89, 118), and the field must be aban- 
doned to "Liberalism." 

But let us recall some facts previously 
established. Likeness of nature is essen- 
tial between father and son. Sinful man 
partakes of the Satanic nature and can be- 
come partaker of the Divine nature, 
which is essential to sonship with God, 
only by the new birth, by being born of 
God. But this new birth is not inevitable, 
but conditioned on repentance and faith. 
And these are grounded in the Atone- 
ment, and so also is the sonship which 
they condition. "It is not the children of 
the flesh that are the children of God; 
but the children of the promise are reck- 
oned for a seed" (Rom. 9: 8; 4: 16). 
Therefore "God sent forth His Son, that 
He might redeem them that were under 
the law, that we might receive the adop- 



** Liberalism " and Orthodoxy 249 

Hon of sons'' (Gal. 4: 4, 5). The orig- 
inal, natural, and normal filial relation of 
man to God has been broken up by sin, 
and can be restored only as a gift of 
grace on the basis of a sufficient ground, 
which is the Atonement in Christ. ^'Not 
once in all the Scriptures," says Bishop 
Stephen M. Merrill, "since Adam lost the 
image of God, and begat a son in his 
own likeness, has the relation of children 
in God's family been attributed to crea- 
tion, or to the natural birth, but always to 
redemption and adoption ; or, which is the 
same thing, to the new birth, or spiritual 
regeneration. This is a crucial fact in 
this connection, and one of high signifi- 
cance in its bearing on all the lines of 
difference between the evangelical and the 
nonevangelical systems. It touches the 
vital point, because it implies the power in 
men to forfeit heirship, and all that heir- 
ship means. It assumes that sin affects 
the relations of eternity, as well as those 
of time. Men are so cut off from God 



250 Christ's Sonship Natural 

that eternal alienation ensues, unless re- 
demption restores the vital union, and 
establishes the relation with God which 
will secure personal acceptance here, and 
everlasting life hereafter. In the light of 
this truth the reason for the costly sac- 
rifice appears; nor is there any way of 
justifying it on any hypothesis that 
makes all men the children of God by 
being born after the flesh'' (33 : 76, "j^j^. 

The fatal weakness of the claim that we 
are sons of God by our very nature, may 
be shown by a comparison between 
Christ's sonship and ours. Jesus "comes 
that He may create in man the spirit of 
Christ's sonship the sonship He himself has 

natural, ours n -r^ • r 

gracious by nature (7: 307). But if 

that sonship is His by nature, it certainly 
is not ours by nature. The very reason of 
Christ's coming is that His nature and 
that of sinful man are so very distinct, 
that, in order to man's participation in 
His nature and relation of sonship to the 
Father, the nature of Christ must be be- 



Our Sonship Gracious 251 

gotten in man by a new spiritual birth. 
The humanity that Christ embodied and 
which shared in His sonship was a sinless 
humanity, pure, harmless, and undefiled. 
Sinful humanity can be brought into His 
filial relationship to the Father only as in 
and through Him it is redeemed from sin. 
"The Father was in character and quality 
as was the Son" (7: 392), and we must 
be begotten in the image of Him who 
created us, in order to participate in that 
likeness and hence in that sonship. Dr. 
Fairbairn lays it down as a principle that 
the "creature is a being who corresponds 
in quality and kind to the causal instinct 
or creative impulse to which he owes his 
existence" (7: 417). This is true of the 
original creation and states clearly the ex- 
cellent condition and relation with which 
man began his earthly career, but it does 
not take into account the condition which 
prevails as the result of sin, the evil that 
came by man's choice of the Devil instead 
of God, since which time man's very ex- 



252 Sonship Made Real by the New Birth 

istence is conditioned by and his possible 
sonship grounded in the Atonement of 
Jesus Christ. Man's original sonship was 
natural ; but since he forfeited that by sin, 
if he again becomes a son, it must be by 
grace on the ground of Christ's sacrifice. 

Dr. Fairbairn opposes the idea of son- 
ship by grace, on the assumption appar- 
sonshipmade cntly that such a sonship 

real by the . 

new birth cannot be real m the consti- 

tution. ^*He who is no son by nature can 
never become a son by adoption'' (7: 
390, 391, Note). But he who is no son 
in any sense can become a son in the only 
true sense by birth. Adoption is not the 
only element in this process. True, that 
is the legal element ; but the new birth is 
the life element and must not be ignored. 
Man originally was constituted in his 
very nature a son of God. This relation- 
ship he lost by his own responsible choice 
of sin. By grace his life was spared and 
the race continued in existence, but no 
longer "by nature" the children of God 



Gracious Sonship of Infants 253 

but ^^the children of wrath." By grace 
the Atonement was provided and regen- 
eration offered, so that the nature might 
be transformed, and a new fihal nature 
and relationship begotten by the Spirit. 
Again man by his very nature and consti- 
tution is a real son of God, partaking of 
the very nature of his Father. But this 
nature is not received as the ordinary re- 
sult of creation, but is a new nature gra- 
ciously bestowed through the new birth 
on the ground of the Atonement. Son- 
ship does not result from creation, but 
from a vital union with the crucified and 
glorified Christ. 

Because of the vicarious sacrifice of 
Christ, all men at birth come into the 
family of God. Adam's Gracious 

sonship of 

children were begotten, not infants 

in the Divine image in a sense sufiicient 
to constitute them the children of God, 
but in the image of their fallen father. 
They were born in a state of moral ruin, 
generally termed native depravity. Dur- 



254 Gracious Sonship of Infants 

ing the years of irresponsibility this in- 
volved no guilt, but it did necessitate gra- 
cious interference in their behalf on the 
part of God, if they were to sustain a 
filial relation and be in a saved condition. 
That God did so interfere and graciously 
own all such in infancy as His children, 
the teaching of Jesus in regard to child- 
hood has put forever beyond question. If 
this was not on the basis of the Atone- 
ment, then there is a filial relation to God 
among men and the salvation of a class — 
those dying in infancy — that have no re- 
lation to Christ's redemption, and they 
will never be able to ascribe their condi- 
tion to His sacrificial death. No one who 
believes in the Atonement at all, will hold 
such an untenable position. But if these 
benefits accrue to the children because of 
redemption, they must be unconditional 
benefits; for the class benefited cannot 
meet conditions. Therefore we say, be- 
cause of the unconditional benefits of the 
Atonement, man at birth is placed in the 



Gracious Sonship Lost by Sin 255 

relationship of a son to God (Rom. 5: 
18). By grace, on the ground of love's 
redeeming work, all men begin life in the 
same relation to God that the original 
man, before sin, sustained by nature. 

As our first parents by sin lost their 
moral likeness to God and hence also their 
sonship, so, upon arriving at Gracious 

sonship lost 

years of accountability, if by sin. 
man chooses sin, he thereby loses his gra- 
cious relationship, becomes a partaker of 
the Satanic nature and a child of the 
Devil. Below even the inner life, which 
is the inspiration of the outer life, as Dr. 
Miley expressed it in his class-room lec- 
tures, "there is the nature with its tenden- 
cies, metaphysical or unphenomenal, but 
none the less real for thought. There is a 
real difference of subjective tendency as 
between the lion and the lamb. There is 
such a difference in the natures of men 
whose lives are morally opposite." These 
morally opposite natures cannot have 
been begotten spiritually by the same fa- 



256 Sonship Restored 

ther. One is from below and the other 
from above. 

If the entire argument up to this point 
has not been a delusion, the proposition 
„ " . that, to become a son of God, 

Sonship ' ' 

adoptfonand sinful man must be adopted 

the new birth -. i r r^ ji ^ r i 

and born of God, is firmly 
established. He who, belonging to one 
family, would become a son of another, 
must be adopted out of the one family 
into the other. For the sinner to become 
a child of God, he must be adopted out of 
the family of Satan into the family of 
God; and in order for him to be a real 
and not a merely legal son, he must be 
born again, born of God. ^That which 
is begotten must have the nature of that 
of which it is begotten" (26: 216). 
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; 
and that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit." He whose "heart is deceitful 
above all things, and exceedingly cor- 
rupt" evidently has been "born of the 
flesh," begotten by the Deceiver and 



Witness of the Spirit to Sonship 257 

Wicked One. Nature results from birth. 
Moral likeness to God, the filial nature, 
results from being born of God. Children 
are not made, but born. Those who are 
born of God are called children of God 
and are easily distinguished from children 
of the Devil (i Jno. 3: 10). 

Sonship not only is begotten, but is wit- 
nessed to also by the Holy Spirit. That 
there is no sonship for the witness of 

-r^. . - .- the Spirit 

sinner in the Divme family, tosonstup 
except first he shall be born of the Spirit, 
seems to have been made clear. When we 
thus become children of God, He sends 
forth the Spirit of His Son into our 
hearts, crying "Abba, Father," and bear- 
ing witness that we are children and heirs 
of God. 

This sonship is the gracious and glo- 
rious privilege of all. "The perfect de- 
sign of Christianity, and that The privilege 
which is, so to speak, its 
peculiarity, is to bring God near to man 
as a Father, to restore His fatherly rela- 



258 Sonship, the Privilege of All 

tion to mankind" (36: 116). But the 
way to realize this is not to begin by deny- 
ing that sin has broken that relationship 
and that therefore it does not need to be 
restored. Christianity perfectly meets 
the case, because it portrays man's real 
condition and need as an "alien" and 
"foreigner," and provides and shows the 
way by which man through the new birth 
may be restored to his forfeited sonship 
and know himself by the witness of the 
Spirit a child of God. "The soul of per- 
sonal Christianity is the adoption which 
makes us as regenerate the sons of God. 
. . . The new life with its privileges to 
which He (the Son) introduces us in His 
Gospel is the virtue of His Divine Son- 
ship in us: His eternal filial life poured 
afresh into our human nature" (36: 
116). It is the high privilege of man in 
the spiritual and moral realm to choose 
his own father; every man may be well 
born, born of God, if he will, and thus 
come to share truly in the conception of 



The True Doctrine 259 

God as a Father, which is the characteris- 
tic conception of Jesus, in whom first it 
has been revealed clearly that all men may 
become and be forever the children of 
God. The true doctrine of the Father- 
hood of God iSy then, that Christ by His 
Atonement has made that Fatherhood 
universally possible, hut not thereby 
actually universal. 

B. — Correlated with Other Facts 

This doctrine of a moral and spiritual, 
and therefore conditional, but also univer- 
sally available Fatherhood and sonship, 
fits in perfectly with all the facts of reve- 
lation and experience. We mention a 
few, in connection with which the doc- 
trine of the universal Fatherhood of God 
is most generally presented. 

It is claimed that sin becomes an awful 
thing in the light of the universal Father- 
hood (2: 183). But it be- 

r 1 , . . Sin 

comes a more awful thmg m 

the light of the true doctrine of the Fa- 



260 Sin 

therhood. It not only breaks up the 
Divine family and resists God's desire of 
filial love (i : 197), but it cancels the re- 
lation of sonship once graciously be- 
stowed and actually makes children of the 
Evil One out of those who once were, 
who ought to be, and who might become 
sons of God. The true doctrine does not 
allow of saying of sinful, selfish, fighting 
men, "The essence of our being is love" 
(2: 182), nor, with Maurice and Robert- 
son as quoted by Dr. Crawford, "that it is 
lawful to tell men that they are justified 
before God, and are sons of God in the 
only begotten Son," that "the sin of man 
consists in this denial of his filial relation- 
ship to God," "that man, as man, is God's 
child," and that faith "only appropriates 
that which is a fact already" (18: 184, 
185). No, the tendency of the doctrine 
of the universal Fatherhood is to make 
light of sin; indeed, there is no logical 
place for it at all, until sin has been gotten 
rid of entirely. The Jews, while rejecting 



Salvation 261 

Christ, claimed God as their Father and 
were rebuked severely. The sinner who 
is ready to repent, confess, and cry for 
mercy and pardon, has no thought that he 
is a child of God, but thinks of himself 
only as the Bible teaches him to think, 
that he is a child of wrath, an heir of hell. 
The doctrine of the universal Father- 
hood IS made use of as a basis for the 
teaching that "the Gospel 

Salvation 

was good news to men, not 
of something which was coming to them, 
but of their actual state, of that state 
which belongs to them, but which they do 
not recognize," because "mankind are 
His sons, not by adoption or grace, but by 
nature,'^ and "no atonement can be needed 
to bring nigh those who never can be far 
off/'^ This is the logical position of 
those who insist that all men are always 
sons of God and who are affected by the 
tendency to question the reality of native 
depravity. But if there is truth in Scrip- 

* Maurice quoted in 31; 76, 



262 Salvation 

ture, salvation is vastly more than a dis- 
covery of an existing right relationship of 
man to God. Indeed, it is not that at all, 
but must be preceded by a discovery of 
the very opposite. Salvation is a radical 
rectifying of a wrong and disordered 
nature and relationship. 

It is thought by some that v^e have a 
more sure hope of salvation on the as- 
sumption that in God's seeking the lost, 
v^e have a Father seeking for His wander- 
ing children. But in the perfection of the 
Divine Being who "is love," and in His 
fatherly instincts that led to creation and 
redemption in order that He might have 
sons, and in the object lesson of Calvary, 
which is a fact regardless of any theory 
or doctrine of the Fatherhood, we have 
the firmest foundation for the belief that 
God has "loved too deeply to surrender 
the lost,'^ except after the last resource of 
the Infinite has been exhausted in the ef- 
fort to bring all men into His family and 
eternal inheritance. The real hope of the 



Punishment 263 

sinner, whose sin has made him a veri- 
table child of the Devil, is not in any ficti- 
tious sonship that is compatible with a 
state of moral ruin and alienation from 
God, but in the revealed truth that the 
alien in heart and life may be trans- 
formed, by a spiritual birth and cleansing, 
into an actual son and heir by the God of 
love and holiness who is longing to- be his 
Father and to have him for His son. 

It has been shown that in any consist- 
ent scheme holding the doctrine of the 
universal Fatherhood, there 

Punishment 

is no place for punishment, 
but only for fatherly discipline. But if 
language can be depended upon to express 
thought and if the Scriptures teach any- 
thing, punishment is a revealed certainty 
of eternal duration. No one more than 
those who hold the conditional, but uni- 
versally available Fatherhood and son- 
ship, can emphasize the "immutable and 
universal" love of God for sinners. But 
must not this be within the limits of pro- 



264 Punishment 

bation? Does God love the Devil? or 
does He love man after man by his final 
rejection of God and choice of sin be- 
comes a devil? The only thinkable con- 
clusion gives a negative answer to these 
questions. In every other direction is 
only endless confusion. "To accept the 
loss (of the sinner) were to cancel the 
love/' it is said. But the time must come 
when that loss is accepted and the love 
canceled. The only thinkable alternative 
is a future — probably an eternal — proba- 
tion, contrary to our only revealed knowl- 
edge and based only on man's incompe- 
tent conjecture. 

What more emphatic exhibition of the 
supreme enmity of God to sin and His 
loving purpose of salvation could be con- 
ceived than His infinite sacrifice to end 
sin by expelling it from the repentant sin- 
ner, accompanied with the eternal shut- 
ting out of the finally incorrigible from 
the presence of God and all holy angels? 
Surely this is less a defeat on the part of 



Punishment 265 

God than for Him to engage in what He 
must know to be an eternally hopeless 
conflict, which, no matter what is said, 
must leave sin to be the victor. But God 
tells us that He will not always strive, and 
that there is a sin and a class of sinners 
that can be forgiven never, neither in this 
world nor in that which is to come.^ The 
attempt that God has made for the resto- 
ration of the sinner by His free salvation, 
even if that efifort ends at a time which is 
right in the view of the all-wise and lov- 
ing One, must be such a manifestation of 
God "that all the universe will feel as if 
there had come to it a vision of love that 
made it taste the ecstasy and beatitude of 
the Divine" (7: 468). The doctrine of 
the universal Fatherhood excludes the 
Scriptural fact of punishment. The view 
of the Fatherhood, as made by the Atone- 
ment universally possible but not actually 
and inevitably universal, is in perfect har- 
mony with the Biblical teaching of a 

'Matt. 12; 31, 32; I Jno. 5; 16. 



266 Sorrow, Prayer, and Immortality 

moral government of God based on re- 
wards and punishments, and a distinct 
paternal government, with the subjects of 
which only does God deal as with sons. 

No one, more than the writer, would 
emphasize the blessed truth that the con- 

Sorrow, CCption of God as our Fa- 

prayer, and . . , . « ^ 

immortality thcr brightens the hope of 
immortality, adds reality, delight, and 
zest to the exercise of prayer, and brings 
solid comfort to the suffering and sorrow- 
ful. He who knows God as his everlast- 
ing Father expects most assuredly and 
without question to be His everlasting 
child. To him who knows himself a son, 
prayer is sweet communion with the lov- 
ing Father. And in the midst of disap- 
pointments, blasted hopes, an apparently 
dark future, bodily pain, nervous anxiety, 
soul agony, and especially when death 
enters the home and forces from our em- 
brace those who are most dearly loved, he 
alone knows how to be comforted who 
has learned to "interpret God by His Fa- 



Sorrow, Prayer, and Immortality 267 

therhood/' to look up into the face of the 
Eternal and call Him Father. But all 
this IS without significance to him who 
has not become an actual child by the new 
birth and renewal of the Holy Spirit. 
While sin remains and the soul is a stran- 
ger to God and an alien from the covenant 
of promise, not even the supposition that 
all men are the sons of God can prevent 
suffering and sorrow or give real comfort 
therein. The notion of the universal Fa- 
therhood throws no additional light upon 
the problem of the world's darkness and 
agony. That darkness is too dense to 
be dispelled by any imaginary sun. It 
will give way only before those rays 
which cause the heart to "feel strangely 
warmed/' as the power and right are 
given to become children of God and we 
receive the Spirit of adoption that enables 
us to cry, "Abba, Father," and the Spirit 
bears witness that we are children, and if 
children, then heirs of God and joint heirs 
with Jesus Christ, and thus we come to 



268 Brotherhood, the Supreme Social Need 

know that "all things work together for 
good to'* us because we love and know 
God as our Father. The true doctrine of 
the Fatherhood of God fits in just as per- 
fectly with all other facts of experience 
and revelation. 

C. — The Only Basis of a Brotherly 
Brotherhood and a True So- 
ciology 

The supreme sociological need of the 

world IS a truly brotherly brotherhood, a 

The supreme brotherhood in which selfish 

strife shall cease and each 

shall seek the other's good. 

There is no sufficient basis for such a 
brotherhood in the doctrine of the uni- 
No basis in the vcrsal Fatherhood. There is 

universal 

Fatherhood a Universal brotherhood, a 
unity and solidarity of the race, a likeness 
between all men. By nature and univer- 
sally we are brothers, not because God 
made us, but because "He made of one 
every nation of men" (Acts 17: 26) by 



No Basis in the Universal Fatherhood 269 

descent from a common earthly father, 
and because He has made us interdepend- 
ent in all our relations. But this brother- 
hood which is ours by nature is not suffi- 
cient to exterminate unbrotherliness. The 
natural son or the natural brother will 
build his own fortune on the ruin of his 
natural father or brother. Such a brother- 
hood (and the universal Fatherhood has 
no basis for anything better) "would 
leave the heart of man as barren as" 
socialism leaves it. Any brotherhood 
which is based on the doctrine of a Fa- 
therhood which teaches that all men are 
"equally'' the children of God because 
"there is, and can be, no difference in the 
essential nature of various groups of 
men" (2: 114, 115), though, with the 
French Revolutionists, it adopts the 
motto, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," 
will never recognize the rights of man 
except in theory. All schemes of social 
regeneration and theories and doctrines 
of brotherhood are fundamentally defi- 



270 Only Basis in the True Fatherhood 

cient, which do not recognize that the 
reason why there is a burning social prob- 
lem, is that the nature of man is wrong, 
that there is a radical "difference in the 
essential nature of" the two groups of 
men known in Scripture as "the children 
of the Devir' and "the sons of God/' and 
that this difference of nature arises from 
a difference between the father of the one 
class and the Father of the other. Un- 
brotherliness will not cease till the 
unbrotherly spirit, arising out of a disor- 
dered and essentially depraved nature, 
has been removed by the Divine begetting 
of a new spirit, a new nature. 

Hence, for the real brotherhood, after 
which the wise and farseeing social re- 
oniy basis former is striving, the only 

in tne true 

Fatherhood sufficient basis is in the true 
doctrine of the Fatherhood. The funda- 
mental inquiry of Sociology is, "How 
may brotherhood be made a reality?'' 
When rightly understood, this question 
does not refer to a natural brotherhood; 



With Sons Having the Father's Nature 271 

for that always has been a reality. A 
natural brotherhood that leaves man v^ith 
a Satanic nature, which leads him to bite 
and devour his natural brother and keeps 
the human race involved in bickering and 
warfare and mutual commercial and in- 
dustrial slaughter, will not solve earth's 
social problems. A new brotherhood is a 
necessity, a brotherhood which is the out- 
growth, not of an imaginary universal 
Fatherhood that calls men the sons of 
God by physical relationship while pos- 
sessed of the nature of the Evil One, but 
of a real moral and spiritual relation of 
sonship that involves a participation in 
the moral character of the Divine Father. 
When men become children of God, the 
bond which unites them to the Father will 
join the children in the real brotherhood, 
and that bond is a common nature of 
moral purity and love with the heavenly 
Father. In such a brotherhood, and in 
such only, will the wrongs, which now 
afflict society, become an impossibility. 



272 The Weakness of Many Reforms 

This bond of brotherly love can become a 
reality only in and through Christ, who 
alone has taught and exemplified the true 
brotherly spirit, whose real followers are 
known as "brethren/'^ taught to manifest 
brotherly love,^ and who become true 
brothers to one another only by becoming 
the brothers of Jesus Christ, through par- 
taking of His filial character and hence of 
His filial relationship by being born into 
the family where He is the First-begotten 
Son and Elder Brother. 

The fundamental weakness of many 
social crusaders to-day is this, that they 
assume the sufficiency of natural brother- 
hood as a basis of reform, and, in so far 
as they recognize God at all, they teach 
that He is the universal Father, and thus 
ignore the absolute necessity of a trans- 
formation in man's nature as radical as 
birth in order to get into the family of 

*Matt. 23: 8; Eph. 6: lo, 21-23; Philemon 7, 16, 20; 
PhiL I- 12, 14; 3: I, 13, 17; 4: 1, 8, 21; Col. i; 2; 4: 15; 
Heb. 3: I, 12; 10: 19; 13: 22, 23. 

^Heb. 6: 10; 10: 24, 33, 34; 12: 14; 13: 3, 16; Rom, 
14: 13, 21; John 13: 34; 15: 12. 



Postpones the World's Renewal 273 

God and establish a brotherhood which 
by its very nature will exterminate the 
evils that have given occasion for the 
crusade. This fatal error postpones the 
day of the world's redemption and hence 
also of its social regeneration. For "the 
Ideal Republic, the New Atlantis, Utopia, 
the Golden Age'' to "take form among 
men," something more will be necessary 
than simply for all to learn "to think of 
the Infinite as Father and of humanity as 
a brotherhood" (2: 135) — men will have 
to become children of God, possessed of 
the Divine nature and hence of a brother- 
ly spirit that will lift them above the 
natural brotherhood in sin and need and 
selfish nature into the brotherhood of the 
Divine family where love holds universal 
sway because it has been begotten in every 
child by the Father who is love (i Jno. 
5 : I, 2). And just as the Divine love em- 
braces and determines the Divine treat- 
ment of those who will not allow a 
rnanifestation of paternal love toward 



274 Results of This Coming Brotherhood 

them because they will not be sons, so also 
the Christian's treatment of those toward 
whom he is not allowed to exercise 
brotherly love (2 Jno. 10, 11), will be 
governed by the law of the family in 
which he has become a child, the law of 
love (Matt. 5: 44, 46). Men can never 
be united except in and through Christ 
(John 17: 21, 23). This can be accom- 
plished only by those who are not sons be- 
coming sons by being born of God. 
Hence the moral, spiritual, conditional, 
and universally available Fatherhood is 
the only basis of the ideal sociological 
brotherhood. 

To think of the inevitable results of the 
bringing in of such a brotherhood, is an 
Results of this inspiration to every true 

coming i ^ x 

brotherhood heart. In proportion as men 
become children of God, adopted out of 
the family whose father is Satan, born 
into the family whose Father is the Lord, 
formed into a brotherhood about the Per- 
son of Jesus, and therefore accepting as 



Results of This Coming Brotherhood 275 

the law of their life the commandment of 
Christ, "Love one another as I have 
loved you" — in proportion as the natural 
brotherhood of man based on creation, is 
transformed into the Christian brother- 
hood grounded only in redemption, will 
there be an annihilation of the selfishness 
which is now the basis of our social order, 
and the ushering in of a reign of universal 
brotherliness under which regenerated 
human nature will be guided by the law, 
''Love thy neighbor as thyself." This 
will maintain all men in brotherly rela- 
tions by putting into force everywhere the 
principles of the social laws of the Old 
and New Testaments, laws that pro- 
nounce woe upon the unjust accumula- 
tion of personal wealth to the pauperizing 
of one's neighbors (Is. 5: 8), laws that 
require a recognition of the needs of our 
brother (Lev. 23: 22), laws that demand 
universal righteousness, and obedience to 
which would make it forever impossible 
that the righteous should be forsaken or 



276 Results of This Coming Brotherhood 

his seed be seen begging bread. In that 
day distrust and discord will have ceased, 
pride, jealousy, and hate will no longer be 
infused into the heart, domestic life, 
neighborhood intercourse, or the policy of 
nations, because the dominant question in 
society, business, and the affairs of State 
will not be. What will increase the ma- 
terial wealth of a few? but rather. What 
will promote the general and highest wel- 
fare of all ? Each will seek his own wel- 
fare in the welfare of others, or rather 
lose sight of self in the effort to save 
others. 

And that day is coming. It is not here, 
it is yet to come. Men are still trusting in 
a natural brotherhood, a natural sonship, 
a universal Fatherhood. Hope is not in 
these things. There is no help in con- 
founding existing facts with ideals and 
greatly desired ends. The first requisite 
to the cure of a malady, is to recognize 
the true nature of the disease. The 
trouble with this world is that its heart is 



Weakness of Universalism 277 

wrong, its nature is Satanic and not 
Divine, it is peopled to too great an extent 
with the seed of the serpent who have be- 
come such by their own choice of sin. 
The only remedy is the begetting and in- 
crease, till it shall cover the earth, of a 
new race: namely, the sons of God, who 
can become such only by their own per- 
sonal choice of God to be their Father, 
through faith in Jesus Christ their Sav- 
ior. And that day is coming. Christ 
has been manifested to destroy the works 
of the Devil, and in spite of the sin and 
selfishness now prevailing, 

*• For a* that, and a* that, 
It's coming yet, for a' that; 
That man to man, the world o'er, 
Shall brithers be for a' that." 

D. — Relation of the Fatherhood to 
Ethics and Evangelism 

The claim is made that the doctrine of 
the universal Fatherhood ^ , 
"offers the strongest of all universaitsm 
motives for righteousness" (2 : 188) and 



278 Weakness of Universalism 

"is the most telling, the most persuasive, 
the most saving that ever was preached to 
the children of men" (3: 90). If the 
latter claim were true, then the Univer- 
salist ought to be the strongest and largest 
Protestant Church in the world; for this 
is the fundamental doctrine of that or- 
ganization. The extent to which the Uni- 
versalists have failed to approach toward 
the spiritual or numerical leadership of 
Protestantism, may be taken as a measure 
in some degree of the distance which their 
fundamental doctrine comes from the 
truth. It has proved a dismal failure as a 
force in winning men to Christ, and the 
chief reason for its weakness in this par- 
ticular is, that, in spite of its great ap- 
parent attractiveness, it is false and there- 
fore without sweeping and permanent 
power for good. To teach men that they 
are children of God and therefore that all 
they need is to act as loyal children, is to 
lead them, even if it does this much, only 
tp forrnal and outward conformity, in- 



Weakness of Universalism 279 

stead of to the inward spiritual trans- 
formation which is essential to make them 
actual children and heirs of God. The 
doctrine of the Fatherhood is a good one 
to impress upon children and to teach to 
regenerated adults ; but to the sinner, who 
has forfeited his sonship by deliberate re- 
bellion and sin, by rejecting God and 
giving allegiance to Satan, sonship in the 
Divine family can be taught without un- 
told injury only as a relationship to be 
attained by leaving ofif his sins in right- 
eousness and turning to the living God. 
The setting forth of repentance as the 
sufficient ground of forgiveness, encour- 
ages the sinner to continue in sin and to 
delay the day of his salvation ; for on that 
doctrine, mere repentance at any time, in 
this world or any other, will change 
man's lost condition whenever he may 
choose, and so there is no need of haste. 

"To the depraved and vicious, the self- 
centered and selfish, the doctrine that God 
is Father of all men gives a feeling of se- 



280 Weakness of Universalism 

curity and of license. It relieves them of 
. . . the sense of . . . the fear of 
God. Hearing this doctrine universally 
proclaimed, . . . bad men, impenitent 
men say within themselves, *If this is true, 
if God is Father to all men, then we are 
as well off as others/ In spite of qualifi- 
cations and distinctions and warnings, the 
doctrine that God is Father to all, means 
this to the average man of the world ; and 
if it is qualified and explained so as not to 
mean thisy it means nothing, at least noth- 
ing that he cares for. On the other hand, 
to the righteous, this doctrine has a tend- 
ency to cheapen the highest thing. If it 
be true, they are tempted to feel : 'If God 
is Father to all men, then we are no better 
off than others,' " and "imperceptibly, un- 
consciously, they yield to the inevitable 
tendency, lower their standard of self- 
denial, self-mastery, and sacrifice, and re- 
lax their zeal in the service of God and 
man" (20: 188, 189). In addition to this 
clear reaaoning from Dr. Alexander, we 



A Sure Basis in the True Fatherhood 281 

submit this testimony from Mr. Wilson 
concerning a present well-known fact : "It 
is worth our while to notice that where 
the *new conception' is most earnestly ad- 
vocated, Methodism is most thoroughly 
losing its power to induce men to make 
this unselfish surrender to the Lord Jesus" 
(28:64). 

For pure ethics and a successful evan- 
gelism, we must have a more substantial 
basis than the shifting sands a sure basis 

of a theological fiction. Pro- Fatherhood 

fessor William Newton Clarke finds the 
"eternal foundation for human ethics" in 
the fact that "God is the ideal person," 
and hence "must be the ideal of goodness 
for all persons," that "the good is likeness 
to God," "God is the moral standard" 
(i: 203-206). Speaking only of those 
who are indeed the sons of God by the 
new birth, we would say with this dis- 
tinguished author, "The character of the 
Father is the standard for the family. 
. • . Since I am of God's family, moral 



282 A Sure Basis in the True Fatherhood 

obligation is a part of my being, goodness 
is my birthright" (i: 206, 207). And 
with all the heart we would join him in 
this: "We desire to see the human son- 
ship completed in every soul that God has 
made, through holy, loyal fellowship with 
the Father'' (i : 215). But to say of all 
men in their sins that God is their Father, 
we have already found is to say that they 
are in the moral likeness of God ; and this 
compels one of two conclusions, either 
that God, as the moral standard, is not 
worthy of being taken as the ideal, or that 
the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood 
is false and without value to ethics. For 
this class the proper statement is not, 
"Since I am a member of God's family," 
but rather, "Since by God's free grace I 
came into this world His child, but by my 
own choice of sin this gracious relation- 
ship was severed, and since through 
Christ I may yet become reinstated in the 
Divine family, moral obligation is a part 
of my being, goodness is my birthright." 



A Sure Basis in the True Fatherhood 283 

This view gives added force to the ethical 
motive based on God's paternal relation; 
for it lays upon the sinner the awful guilt 
of outraging fatherly love to the extent of 
dissolving the sonship, presents the Cross 
as the ground even of the possible restora- 
tion of the filial standing, and warns us 
that a final refusal to accept the right and 
power to become children of God, will 
shut us out of the heritage involved in 
that relationship forever. Surely these 
considerations, in addition to what has 
been said on the relation of this doctrine 
to Universalism, salvation, and punish- 
ment, are sufficient to show the weakness 
of the doctrine of the universal Father- 
hood as a force making for righteousness, 
and to prove its utter ineffectiveness as a 
motive by which to persuade men to an 
immediate surrender to Christ. The ex- 
hortation of the evangelist is, and still 
must be, for sinners to become "sons of 
God, through faith, in Christ Jesus" 
(Gal. 3:26). 



284 No Advantage in the False Doctrine 

E. — Fatherhood Exalted and Hope 
Inspired 

There is not a point of advantage in the 
false doctrine — there never is. If we stop 
No advantage short of the logical conclu- 

in the false . ^ _ _ . , . - 

doctrine sion of Universalism, the 

doctrine of the universal Fatherhood af- 
fords us nothing more than "a figurative 
and euphonious way of describing crea- 
tion and Providence" (7: 445). Sonship 
on such a basis is nothing better than a 
figure of speech, which succeeds only in 
putting a weapon into the hands of the 
enemy by using a phraseology which may 
be misunderstood and which is unscrip- 
tural. "To possess the characteristics of 
a father," and "to sustain the relation of 
a father," are very different things, and 
the distinction disposes at least of some 
of the natural grounds adduced for the 
universal Fatherhood. Something more 
is needed than the mere remission of and 
escape from deserved penalty, "which is 
all that mankind naturally care for." And 



A Real Universal Hope 285 

when the doctrine is qualified and ex- 
plained to mean more than this, and to 
involve the crucifixion of the fliesh and 
sinful lusts as the condition of "becoming 
His sons indeed'' (i : 145), it has no more 
attraction to the sinful heart than the 
truly Scriptural doctrine. 

The true teaching exalts the Father- 
hood and inspires hope. It shows that 

the filial relation is the ideal ^realuniyersal 

toward which God would ^""^^ 
have humanity move. The purpose of 
Christ through Christianity is to restore 
that relationship wherever it had been 
forfeited. But there is no advantage to 
truth and morals in confounding this 
Divinely desired goal with existing facts, 
the universal moral government of God 
with His paternal government, which can 
be only partial as long as one rebel re- 
mains. The old and always new truth 
that God has sent to take the place of 
Calvinism, that, as Dr. Clarke confesses, 
"perhaps, has broken as many hearts as it 



286 A Real Universal Hope 

has nerved" (i: 190), v^as not this false 
conception of Fatherhood, but rather the 
Arminian's proclamation, 

•* The arms of love that compass me 
Would all mankind embrace." 

This herald of a true universal hope does 
not hesitate gratefully to appropriate all 
that is true in Calvinism touching the 
Divine sovereignty, consistent v^ith the 
conscious and Divinely revealed certainty 
of human freedom, and to add to this the 
true Scriptural conception of a condi- 
tional Fatherhood and sonship, and to lay 
upon all hearts the Divinely imposed re- 
sponsibility of choosing whether to 
remain under the universal moral govern- 
ment of God v^ith the certainty of final 
doom after probation, or of coming into 
the inner courts of the family circle v^here 
God dealeth v^ith us as with sons (Heb. 
12:7,8). 

We have seen that the doctrine of the 
universal Fatherhood adds nothing to the 



A Real Universal Hope 287 

strength of the Divine love nor the cer- 
tainty that infinite resources would be 
employed in providing for the salvation 
of all intelligent creatures whom God has 
made. Neither does it make it any more 
evident that "religion is obviously normal 
and necessary to mankind/' that men are 
born in the kingdom and intended to 
"grow up in the family, and cannot prop- 
erly grow up anywhere else/' that "re- 
ligion is a family matter/' and that "spir- 
itual sonship is only the fulfillment of 
God's creative ideal, expressed when He 
created man in His own likeness" ( i : 
149-15 1, 156). But how shall this family 
religion be realized? How shall we 
"awaken in men an exacting sense of ob- 
ligation, and a blessed sense of privilege" 
( 13 : 192) ? By telling them that in their 
sins they are sons of God, that sonship is 
of so little significance and honor that 
Judas and Nero are as truly and inalien- 
ably children of God as John and Paul 
(3 : 22) ? Shall we seek to inspire men to 



288 A Real Universal Hope 

strive for the privilege of sonship by 
pointing them to that human beast on the 
throne or in the gutter, the assassin with 
his dripping dagger or poisoned bullet, 
the outlaw in the cell or on the scaffold, 
and telling them that such are the sons of 
God? Or shall we tell men in the agony 
of being without God, without Christ, and 
without hope, that the Divine Fatherhood 
is so exalted and sonship in His family a 
relationship so holy, that only those who 
are cleansed by the blood and begotten in 
the very likeness of God and not of Satan 
can be God's children, that we are to 
know what sonship means by what we see 
of Jesus in His relations as a man to the 
Divine Father, and that while we are not 
to be partakers of the Godhead, of the 
Divinity, we must be partakers of the 
Divine nature, of the filial character of 
Jesus, in order to participate with Him in 
the filial relationship? 

The doctrine of the Fatherhood cer- 
tainly is one of the most precious truths 



Fatherhood and Sonship Exalted 289 

of revelation. But does it add anything 

to the precioUSneSS of this Fatherhood 

. r ^ 1 ^^^ sonship 

doctrine, the glory of God, exalted 
and the hope of a lost world, to say that 
all the vile children of men are also hy 
nature the sons of God? Is not greater 
emphasis given to the preciousness and 
glory of this relationship, is not the Fa- 
therhood exalted, and the sonship raised 
to a height that makes it more to be de- 
sired and appreciated, by holding firmly 
to the Scriptural conception, that only 
those who have the mind of Christ and 
are led by the Spirit of God are children 
of God, and that this can become a fact of 
experience only by grace through the 
vicarious sacrifice of the First-begotten 
Son? Of what value is a figurative son- 
ship to us? "We want not merely One 
who, in His other relations, acts as far as 
possible a fatherly part toward us, but 
One who is in fact our Father" (32: 
114). We want to belong to "a new race, 
as much above the sons of Adam as these 



290 Fatherhood and Sonship Exalted 

are above the ape and gorilla/' a "new 
order" composed of "the sons of God/' 
the Founder and first member of which is 
the second Adam. We must have a son- 
ship which expresses life. All so-called 
natural sonship leaves the soul dead. 
"The sons of God have spiritual life; the 
sons of Adam are spiritually dead/' and 
this is because they are not the sons of 
God. Dr. Steele beautifully expresses 
this difference which "is not external, but 
internal. The one feels the heart-throbs 
of a new life; the other lies pulseless in 
the sepulcher of spiritual death. The one 
is God-centered, gravitating upward, 
drawn by the magnetism of love; the 
other is self-centered, moving downward, 
with the accelerating velocity of de- 
pravity. The one throbs through all the 
mystery of his being with the pulses of a 
Divine life; the other is insensible to those 
spiritual truths which thrill the former 
with rapture unutterable. Though both 
obey the Decalogue and minister their 



Fatherhood and Sonship Exalted 291 

charities to the needy, the one acts with a 
single eye to the glory of God; the other 
is actuated by a highly refined selfishness. 
The obedience of the one is freedom; of 
the other, servility" (23: 12-16). We 
must have a sonship that involves an 
actual and not a fictitious likeness to the 
heavenly Father. The sons of Adam re- 
flect his depraved image, the sons of God 
reflect the moral image of the Divine 
purity, they are partakers of the Divine 
nature, His workmanship, created in 
righteousness and holiness of truth. Son- 
ship must be begotten, it cannot be made. 
"Jesus was begotten of the Holy Ghost; 
the sons of God are born of the Spirit. 
. . . Jesus had the certificate of His 
sonship in the repeated utterance of His 
Father, Thou art my well-beloved Son;' 
so does the child of God hear the attesta- 
tion of his Divine adoption prompting the 
joyful shout, Abba, Father: 

** * The Spirit answers to the blood. 

And tells me I am born of God/ " (23: 21.) 



292 Fatherhood and Sonship Exalted 

This conception exalts the Divine Father- 
hood, crowns sonship with a heavenly 
glory, presents it as a heritage worth the 
sacrifice of Calvary and the devoted con- 
secration of man that it might be pos- 
sessed, and holds out a hope as high as 
heaven, as deep as the gates to eternal 
despair, and as wide as the needs of a 
ruined but redeemed humanity. 



CONCLUSION 



It has been shown that the Old Tes- 
tament knows nothing of a universal 
Divine Fatherhood, and that, ^.^ ^ * • 

' ' The doctrine of 

in perfect harmony and con- ^^®^i^i® 
sistency with the writers of the old dis- 
pensation, Christ and His Apostles teach 
a conditional moral and spiritual Father- 
hood and sonship, that in the Divine 
family this sonship is by grace and not by 
nature, not from Adam but from Christ, 
not based on creation, but grounded in 
redemption, that Christ by His Atone- 
ment makes it universal in infancy, uni- 
versally possible for all free intelligences, 
but not thereby actually universal for all 
classes regardless of their moral choice 
and nature. 

Also it has been made clear that the 



294 A Doctrine Consistent and Sufficient 

doctrine of the universal Fatherhood is 
other theories Weak, in that it is based 

groundless, but /-. . 

dangerous neither on Scripture nor in 
any necessity of reason, that it is incon- 
sistent with evangeHcal Christianity, in- 
volves horrible absurdities, is fraught 
with the gravest dangers because of its 
fundamental relation to unscriptural sys- 
tems of theology, and is therefore a most 
cruel and deceptive doctrine. 

On the other hand, the true doctrine of 
a moral, spiritual, and conditional Father- 

A doctrine hood and SOnship, is con- 

consistent and . . , ^ . 

sufficient sistcnt With Scripture and 

reason, meets all the requirements of the 
case, fits in perfectly with all correlated 
facts and doctrines of experience and rev- 
elation, furnishes the only basis for the 
solution of earth's social problems, and 
presents a hope worth entertaining and 
bounded only by man's insanely wicked 
determination to choose Satan instead of 
God to be his father. 

The conception of a universal paternal 



The Obligation Not to Deceive 295 

and filial relationship between God and 
man, and the consequent The obligation 

- 1 , , 1 1 r ,1 not to deceive 

View that the hour for the 
restoration of all wandering sons to the 
Father's home is surely coming, are so 
attractive to the Christian worker, that 
they sometimes come in almost over- 
whelming power and would force accept- 
ance, if one were to lose sight of the 
stern realities of the situation, the re- 
vealed truth of God's Word, and the logic 
of reason, and give himself up to a con- 
templation of the prospects presented by 
him who through the ages has been say- 
ing, "Ye shall not surely die," but "ye 
shall be as God," and "all the kingdoms 
of the world and the glory of them will I 
give thee, if thou wilt fall down and wor- 
ship me." But unfortunately many at- 
tractive hopes must be abandoned because 
they have no basis in truth. It is only the 
voice of an Arch-Deceiver, whose purpose 
seems to be most benevolent and whose 
presentations seem very plausible. What 



296 Our Present Task 

could have been more plausible than the 
tempter's suggestion to the famished Man 
of sorrows, that He transform some 
stones into bread and refresh and re- 
invigorate His weakened body? Appar- 
ently it was a most benevolent heart that 
prompted such a thought. But the real 
design was to make a devil out of the Son 
of God and accomplish the eternal ruin of 
the whole lost race at one fell stroke by 
destroying their only Savior. It is folly 
for us to presume on a happy outcome for 
ourselves or others, for whom we are in 
part at least responsible. All teachers of 
religious truth are under the most sacred 
obligations not to deceive their hearers or 
readers by a presentation of hopes that 
will not stand the test of God's Word. 
We must rather go to the limit of our 
ability to help and guide all aright. 

The time has been when men very gen- 

our present ^^^^^Y thought of God as a 

stern, unbending, wrathful 

King and Judge. Now the pendulum 



Our Present Task 297 

is swinging to the opposite and equally 
dangerous extreme, to the view that He is 
unconditionally and inevitably the Father 
of all. For those who from the beginning 
have grasped the loving and merciful 
justice of God as well as His sovereign 
Lordship, and consistently have declared 
the equal hope, right, and power of every 
child of Adam's lost race to become a 
child of God through faith in Jesus 
Christ, there is absolutely no excuse for 
flying off to the new and false theology, 
which, where it is not a mere subterfuge 
of unbelief, is only a protest against a 
horrible position, which they never oc- 
cupied, and which now is passing from 
the thought of the world so rapidly that 
we can afford, in solemn silence and with- 
out any further heat of passionate oppo- 
sition, to witness its exit. Indeed, those 
who never have been caught in the meshes 
of these views, against which the "new 
theology'* is in particular a protest, oc- 
cupy a peculiarly responsible position, 



298 Man's Need, to Know God as Father 

and are under especial obligation to de- 
vote themselves to the present task of 
bringing back the pendulum of theolog- 
ical and popular thought to the normal, 
safe, and Scriptural view, which really 
exalts the doctrine of the Divine Father- 
hood and emphasizes its preciousness. 

To realize God as Father, is man's su- 
preme need, which is only another way of 
Man's need, to Saying that man needs most 

know God 

as Father of all to be renewed in the 

moral likeness of God, that likeness 
which is necessary to sonship. But to tell 
an unregenerate man that God is his Fa- 
ther, is to offer him a stone, who needs 
bread. What he needs is to know that he 
may be born again, that God so longs to 
be his Father that He has given His only 
begotten Son, that man may have the 
right and power to become indeed a child 
and heir of God. A piece of marble un- 
der the chisel of the sculptor may become 
a masterpiece of statuary, but it is not in 
any sense already such a work of art. So 



The Most Cruel Deception 299 

also the man, whose sins have made him 
a child of Satan, may become by the birth 
of the Spirit a child of God. And noth- 
ing short of this is the design and desire 
of infinite love for all the children of men, 
a consummation which nothing but man's 
free choice of sin can prevent. 

It bodes no good to the cause of pure 
religion, that there is so great readiness 
to make little of the distinc- The most cruel 
tion between the two classes, ^^^^ ^^^ 
which the Scriptures designate by such 
emphatic and pregnant terms. It needs 
to be remembered that it is a great thing 
to be a son of God, and that a wonderful 
inheritance is involved in this relation- 
ship. With exceeding care w^e ought to 
guard against subjecting ourselves to the 
terrible rebuke which Jesus gave to the 
Jews just because they claimed, while not 
believing in Him, to be children of God. 
We must not deceive those, who are look- 
ing to us for the truth, by giving them a 
false basis of hope, in leading them to be- 



300 The Hope That Is 

lieve that they are children of God while 
yet in their sins, until it is too late for 
them to be adopted out of the family of 
the Arch-Deceiver into that of the Father 
in heaven. "Of all deceptions, this is the 
most miserable and disappointing." 

But to a race of lost and sin-ruined 
men, groping in the darkness of an other- 
The hope that is wise raylcss night, we must 

an anchor of 

the soul present the hope that is an 

anchor of the soul, "both sure and stead- 
fast, and which entereth into that within 
the veil/' To this end, tell them not of a 
merely physical and natural sonship that 
means nothing, or else too much, and 
hence gives only a false hope, but tell 
them of a spiritual relationship that 
makes them in the likeness of God, there- 
fore His children and also heirs. Tell 
them not that sonship is already a uni- 
versal fact and that their only need is to 
recognize their Father ; but tell them that 
the gracious privilege of becoming a son 
of God reaches as far as Christ's sacrifi- 



An Anchor of the Soul 301 

cial death, to every soul that sin has 
blighted. Build no air-castles of spiritual 
expectation on the sandy foundation of a 
natural sonship; but tell men that the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ calls them 
to the highest privileges, including the in- 
spiration of the open door to the Father's 
eternal and heavenly home and family 
circle. Tell them of the awful power and 
ruin of sin, that it may even break the 
filial relationship between man and God, 
and transform a possible son of heaven 
into a child of hell. But tell them also 
that the heart of the Eternal is a fatherly 
heart of Divine love that has gone to the 
very depth of a Father's sorrow and a 
Brother's sacrifice, that His desire for 
sons and their highest well-being might 
be realized, and that all the children of 
men, who will, might enter into the most 
blessed relationship of earth or heaven, 
in which all the sons of the redeemed 
family of earth might look up to God and 
say, "Our Father," in a filial confidence 



302 Highest Proof of the Father's Love 

inspired by the experience of the new 
birth and the witness of the Holy Spirit 
to the fact of a real sonship grounded in 
love's redeeming work, a sonship there- 
fore which is the supreme privilege of all 
the children of men ; for no child of God, 
while he makes it his chief concern to be a 
child, will ever perish, but every one has 
been begotten ^'unto a living hope, unto 
an inheritance incorruptible, and unde- 
filed, and that fadeth not away, reserved 
in heaven" for all the children of God 
(i Pet. 1:3, 4). Yes, tell them that 
merely to be a child of God, is the high- 
est proof of the Father's love: "Behold 
what manner of love the Father hath be- 
stowed upon us, that we should be called 
children of God; and such we are. For 
this cause the world knoweth us not, be- 
cause it knew Him not." Evidently 
those who do not know the children of 
God, because they do not know the Son of 
God, are not themselves children of God. 
And merely to be a child of God, is the 



The Assurance of What We Shall Be 303 

great assurance of what we shall be : *lf 
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and 
joint heirs with Christ." "Beloved, now 
are we children of God, and it is not yet 
made manifest what we shall be. We 
know [we know it as children of God] 
that, if He shall be manifested, we shall 
be like Him; for we shall see Him even 
as He is" (i Jno. 3: i, 2). 



SCRIPTURE INDEX 



The following references include only those passages 
directly connected with the subject of the book : 

PAGE PAGE 

Gen. 1:26 152 Mai. 1:6 158 

3:15 i55i 156 2:9, 10 158 

5:3 155 2-IO 160 

6:2 156 Matt. 5:1, 2 179 

9:6 1531 154 5:4 168 

Ex. 4:22, 23 , 158 5:11, 44 181 

Deut. 14:1, 2 158, 165 5:13-16 i8x 

32:5, 21 159 5:14, 16 180 

32:6, 10, 15, 18-20.... 158 5:39 181 

I Chron. 17:13... 161 5:44, 45 180, 192 

Job 38:7 162 5:44-48 i7h 179 

Ps. 5:2 162 5:47 181 

19:11,13 162 5:48 180,203 

29:1 162 6:5-9 177 

68:5 162 6:6^ 32 168 

82:6 161 6:9 176 

89:6 162 6:14 203 

89:26 161 6:16, 33 181 

103:13 162 6:31-33 203 

Is. 1:2 158 6:33 203 

49:20-23 163 7:11 168, 203 

63:16 158, i6i, 164 7:21 181 

64:8 158 10:16, 20 192 

65:1 163 10:19, 20.. 203 

66:19-21 163 12:46-50 197 

Jer. 3:4, 19 158, 163 13:38 192 

31:1, 9, 20 158, 161 13:38, 39 199 

31 :9 159 13:43 204 

Hosea 1:10... 163 23:15 199 



306 Scripture Index 



PAGE PAGE 

Matt. 25:34 204 I Cor. 8:6 207 

26:39 x^S 2 Cor. 6:17, x8 222 

Luke 3:38 154 Gal. 3:16,19 157 

6:20 179 3:26 223, 283 

":i» 2 177 4:4 157 

11:2 168 4:4* 5 223i 249 

11:5-8 185 4:6 224, 225 

12:32 204 4:7 225 

15:1, 2 184 4:29 221 

15:11,24 183 Eph. 1:5-14 225,227 

18:1-8 185 2:3 • 214 

John 1:12 175,200,202 4:6 207 

1:12, 13 202 4:23,24 i53» 323 

3:5,6 202,224 Col. 1:2 225 

5:24 202 3:10 153 

8:39-44 193-197, 211 1 Tim. 4:10...,. iQ 

io*34? 35 i6i Heb. 8:10 225 

20:17 176) 189 12:7,8.. .....286 

Acts 13:10 211 12:9 206 

17:29 205 James 1:18 221 

Rom. 4:16 222, 248 3:9 153 

5:18 255 I Pet. 1:3-5 226,302 

8:9 224 1:3, 23 221 

8:13 225 1 Jno. 2:29 .....221 

8:14 224 3:1, 2 302, 303 

8:15, 16 224, 225 3:9, 10 211, 221, 257 

8:17 226 5:1 •••....221 

9'.8 222,248 



GENERAL INDEX 



Abbott, Lyman, 141 

Absurdities of the universal 
Fatherhood, 74 

Adams, John C, 6, 85, 154, 
160, 181, 204» 212, 214, 217 

Adoption, 219, 252, 256 

Alexander, Dr., 198, 280 

Apostles, doctrine of, 204, 
208, 219 

Arminianism, 286 

Atonement 
excluded by universal Fa- 
therhood, 89, 118, 185, 261 
for infants, 254 
ground of sonship, 223, 247 

Beet, Dr., 182, 219 
Beyschlag", 73, 161, 212, 222, 

224, 234 
Bible, attempts to reconcile, 
211 
doctrine of, 293 
harmonious, 208, 210 
ignored, 40, 212, 213 
see Scripture 
Bibliography, 21 
Bowne, B. P., 69 
Bradford, A. H., 74, 80, 89, 
103, 104, 106, 107, no, 115, 
189, 204, 212, 231, 240 
Broadness, 122 
Brooks, Bishop, 174 
Brotherhood's only basis, 
268-277 



Bruce, Prof., 166, 168, 191, 205 

209, 226, 228 
Buckley, James M., in 
Buttz, Dr., 4, 10 

Calvinism, 128, 140, 245, 285, 

286 
Candlish, J. S., 89, 160, 201, 

203, 220 
Candlish, Robert S., 5, 73, 

128, 140, 245 
Channing, W. E., 45, 52 
Clarke, J. C. C, 46, 55, 56 
Clarke, W. N., 39, 45, 75, 76, 

129, 168, 187, 204, 212, 281, 
285 

Crawford, T. J., 6, 70, 72, 128, 
141 

Depravity, 53, 213 
Doctrine, danger of false, 79, 
80, 122 
true, 39, 259, 293, 294 

Eddy, R., 50, 85 
Ethics, 277 
Evangelism, 277 
Evolution, 141, 155, 156 

Fairbairn, Principal, 47, 59, 
82, 100, loi, 102, 104, 130, 136, 
137, 146, 212, 244, 251, 259 
reply to, 59, 137, 252 
Fall, the, 155 



308 



General Index 



Father, number of times 
used in N. T., 189 
three senses, 190 
Fatherhood 
and sonship, the normal 

relationship, 146 
defined, 239-243 
Fatherhood of God 
and brotherhood of man, 5, 

13, 268-277 
and sonship conditioned, 

121 
correlated with other 

facts, 259 
exalted, 285, 289 
importance of, 7, 38 
see universal 
spiritual relationship, 243 
true doctrine of, 39, 259, 

293, 294 
universal, danger of, 14 
universal in infancy, 253 
universal, theories of, 45 
French Revolution, 269 

God 
desires sons, 244 
eternally the Father, 244 
see Fatherhood and uni- 
versal 

Gordon, A. J., 48 

Hope, 285, 300 

Image of God, what ? 152, 240 
Immortality, 266 
Inconsistencies of the ortho- 
dox, 66 
Infants, 253 

Jesus Christ's doctrine, 166, 

187,. 193-1971 198, 204, 259 
Judas and John, 287 



Kingdom and family, 187, 
191 

liiberalism, 122, 218, 247, 249 
Lidgett, J. S., 8 

man originally a son of God, 

245 
Man's image of God, 152, 240 
Mail's need, 298 
Maurice, 73, 89, 260, 261 
McClintock, Dr., 144 
Merrill, Bishop, 10, 13, 39, 99, 

154, 194, 249 
Miley, John, 116, 119, 255 
Milton, 48, 127 
Moral government, 100 
Murphy, Dr., 157 

Nero and Paul, 287 
New Birth 
essential to sonship, 94, 201, 

220, 252, 256 
excluded by the universal 
Fatherhood, 87 
Nye, H. R., 142 

Occasion and purpose, 37 

Old Testament, 152, 158, 160, 
164 
see Scripture Index, 305 

Orthodoxy and Liberalism, 
247-249 

Orthodox writers inconsist- 
ent, 66 

Parable of Prodigal Son, 

182 
Parental government, '88, 98, 

loi, 102 
Paul, 182 
Pelagianism, 185 



General Index 



309 



Prayer, 266 

Prayer, the Lord's, 176 

Prodigal Son, 182 

Punishment 

and the true doctrine, 263 

capital, III 

excluded by the universal 
Fatherhood, 88, 104, 233 

liability to, 104, 118 

necessity of, no 

Scriptural, 106, 115 

worthy ends of, 108 

Reductio ad absurdum, 74 
Responsibility of teachers, 

79» 295 
Robertson, 73, 89, 260 

Salvation, 261 
Sanday, Dr., 166 
Scripture, harmonious, 208, 

210 
Scripture Index, 305 
Scripture, the final test, 40, 

234 
Sermon on the Mount, 179 
Shippen, R. R., 50, 85 
Sin, 259 

causes abnormal relation- 
ship, 146 
Sociology's 

need, 268 

weakness, 272 
Sonship 

alienable, 127, 216 

begotten, not created, 242 

by adoption, 219, 256 

by grace, 121, 249 

by New Birth, 94, 201, 220, 
249, 256 

Christ's and ours, 250 



Sonship— Cdn^inued 
conditioned, 133, 223, 229 
determining factor of, 224 
exalted, 289 
forfeitable, 134 
grounded in Atonement, 

223, 247 

lost by sin, 246, 255 
moral and spiritual, 130 
normal relationship, 146 
not natural, but gracious, 

250, 252 
not physical, 129, 197, 249 
open to all, 200, 229, 257 
privileges of, 203, 224, 225, 

228, 302 
restored, 246, 256 
witnessed by the Spirit 

224, 257 
Sorrow, 266 
Steele, Dr., 290 

Task, our present, 296 
Teachers, responsibility of, 

79i 295 
Terry, M. S., 9 
Theories of universal Fa- 
therhood 
described, 45 
refuted, 47 

Universal Fatherhood 
absurdities of, 74 
a cruel deception, 122, 226, 

299 
and ethics, 277 
and evangelism, 277 
and salvation, 261 
based on sentimentalism, 

231 
cheapens sonship, 280 



310 



General Index 



Universal Fatherhood- Cont. 
excludes Atonement, 89, 

118, 185, 261 
excludes New Birth, 87 
excludes punishment, 88, 

104 
genesis of doctrine of, 48 
in Christian Science, 48 
in Mormonism, 49 
in Unitarianism and Uni- 
versalism, 50, 78, 79, 80, 
85,86 
makes light of sin, 259 
makes the Bible inconsist- 
ent, 211 
no basis for true brother- 
hood, 268 
no necessity for the, 51 
not grounded in Scrip- 
ture, 230, 234 
of no advantage, 284 
tends to Universalism, 80, 
8s 



Universal Fatherhood— Cont, 
theories of, described, 45 
theories of, refuted, 47 

Universalism 
alternative, 78 
Bradford, A. H., 80, 89 
Fairbairn, 82 
falls, 122 
fundamental doctrine of, 

85 
logical chain of, 86 
major premise of, 79, 93 
reconciling Scripture, 212 
tendency to, 80, 261 
weakness of, 277 



Weiss, 90, 203, 219 
Wendt, 45, 136, 161, 163, 170 
Westcott, Dr., 165 
Wilson, G. W., 281 
Witness of the Spirit, 224, 257 
Wright, C. H. H., 6, 245 



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